


Just like them

by Enky



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), The Sims (Video Games)
Genre: Doubt, M/M, Post Revolution, Self-Discovery, but still light hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 33,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enky/pseuds/Enky
Summary: After the events of DBH, President Warren orders Detroit to be evacuated, but many humans decide to stay anyway. Freshly released from the archive Daniel returns to his old home, the now abandoned Phillips apartment. Trying to decide what to do with this new life of his, the deviant learns that free will oftentimes doesn't mean "do what you want" at all.
Relationships: Daniel/Gavin Reed
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

November 12, 2038  
Park Avenue

Daniel placed his hand on the door lock. However, the device rejected almost instantly his request.

ACCESS DENIED

It wasn’t just a string of bright letters, the message additionally burned itself into the android brain. And although the narrative went that androids didn’t feel pain, the sharp sting of the “Nope” signal along with all the emotions it triggered in Daniel’s deviant mind were unpleasant to say the least.

“Shit!”

Daniel raised his hand – or rather, he moved his shoulder to lift the replacement arm and hand up, spare parts salvaged from other unfortunates that had found themselves in the DPD’s evidence archive. Just when the new limbs had started to feel less like prostheses and more like parts of himself, the android had to receive a reminder to the fact that this wasn’t the case. His real hand was lost and with it the RFID tag that would have opened the door to the Phillips apartment.  
Daniel wondered briefly the key to which door he was carrying now, because some signal had gotten exchanged between the hand and the door lock. If there had been no key present at all, the door would just have stayed silent instead of bellowing its “Access denied” at the intruder.  
A shutdown police auxiliary beyond repair had “donated” Daniel’s new legs, but also the hand? Daniel didn’t remember. It hadn’t mattered earlier that day when they had set him more or less free.  
And now the android he was standing here, with an electronic cuff somewhere in his system, a novel worth of parole terms in his head, but fresh out of an emergency override keycard for his own home.

_I should have went with that guy from Jericho when he offered it. But, noooooo, I HAD to do this alone, because I don’t NEED help at all. And I shouted at him, so there’s no turning back now. It’s getting dark anyway. And ‘sides, I have a right to this flat! It’s my inheritance, the pay for four years of service, no way I’m going to live in, what was it, a wrecked cruise ship or something? No way! ___

__Tap,tap,tap… jingle,jingle,jingle… swoosh_ _

__Daniel exited the elevator and only when the doors closed behind him did he realize that he had just traveled downwards by one floor without actually having decided to do so._ _

___Check. Deviant brain doing deviant stuff. They warned me about this._ _ _

__Daniel’s subconsciousness had taken over, now the question was where had it taken him?  
Looking around Daniel discovered that he was standing right in front of an apartment door, one hand raised slightly, obviously in an attempt to ring the doorbell. The nameplate that went with the bell read “Rasoya”._ _

__Ah, right, that was familiar territory. The Rasoyas were the Phillips’ direct downstairs neighbors. They had helped them out by taking Emma when her parents were out and with sugar, flour and eggs that Caroline tended to forget to stock up in sufficient quantity. That had been before Daniel had joined the household, of course, but even with the Phillips owning a state of the art household assistant made by CyberLife now the families had remained… close?_ _

___I have always assumed our families were close, but looking back I feel “habitually on speaking terms” is more precise._ _ _

__Someone was stirring now inside the apartment and a female voice rose up: “I think I heard someone at the door! Will you take a look?”_ _

__“Yes, it’s me!” Daniel shouted back, then rang the bell._ _

__Someone was looking through a spyhole, not trusting the electronic security camera, then opened the door. Before it was fully open, Daniel already gasped at the person behind it: “Can I borrow a crowbar, please, Mrs. Rasoya? I need to break into the Phillips apartment!”_ _

__Mrs. Rasoya laughed so hard at this that the toddler boy she was holding was shaking violently. Reflexively Daniel grabbed him while Mrs. Rasoya was still trying to get a grip on herself. Eventually the woman said:_ _

__“Daniel Phillips – the most polite android revolutionary ever.”_ _

__“Calm down, calm down!” Daniel shushed the human. “I’m not with Markus or whoever, I don’t even have a clear idea what exactly’s going on!”_ _

___I mean, when have I ever? I lived in an illusion all my existence, believing myself appreciated… sheltered… Going by my experience Markus could just be another Connor: playing nice, but harboring ulterior motives. ____ _

____“They just…”_ _ _ _

____Looking for a familiar term in all the madness that was the present, the android continued:_ _ _ _

____“…let me out of prison and here I am, but I can’t enter my own damn apartment!”_ _ _ _

____“Own dan apartment!” little Caden Rasoya repeated cheerfully, at which his grandmother demanded the kid to get returned to her._ _ _ _

____“Raj, dear?” she called into the apartment and a few heartbeats later her adult son, Caden’s father, appeared. Raj was a gourmet chef and his body was certainly looking the part, although he tended to dress extremely casually at home._ _ _ _

____“Would you accompany Danny here upstairs to break down the Phillips’s door, Raj?”_ _ _ _

____“You know what, mom?” Raj laughed out loud. “This is by far the most normal request I’ve heard those last few days.”_ _ _ _

____Daniel watched Mrs. Rasoya retreat into her home where she picked up an old handheld gaming device that she had been playing on. He heard Caden giggle. The TV was running, Caden giggled some more, but then listened intently to his mother, who was explaining something connected to the evening children’s show they were watching. Everything was so normal!_ _ _ _

____Why were the Rasoyas still here, Daniel wondered? Were the feeling that the worst was behind them and deeming it save to stay in Detroit, even though the president had arranged an evacuation of a scope that put to shame even the annual floods? Were these humans maybe just as attached to their territory as Daniel himself was? Regardless of the possible consequences? In retrospect, what if Caroline had still been here tonight? Or – was she, maybe?!_ _ _ _

____“Uh… Is Caroline…?” Daniel started asking Raj._ _ _ _

____“Left Detroit. In fact, she didn’t even wait for the presidential nudge to do so.”_ _ _ _

____“Ah.”_ _ _ _

____Raj grabbed the doorknob and with his head motioned the android to join him._ _ _ _

____“Come in!”_ _ _ _

____“But I need to…”_ _ _ _

____“No way I’m trying to kick in a sturdy apartment door, least of all with security still intact”, Raj explained. “And neither should you do that, with a criminal record on your head. You have one…?”_ _ _ _

____“Yes, yes, it’s all legit. The DPD knows I’m here, but, fuck, I should have asked for an escort to actually get into my home.”_ _ _ _

____“You certainly picked up some language there that you didn’t know before”, Raj commented, still more amused than wary. Definitely wary, too, but not to an extent that prevented the man from acting civilly._ _ _ _

____“But what am I to do now?”_ _ _ _

____“You’ll want to take the balcony route, Daniel. Climb up from our balcony and find your door. It was never properly repaired after… the incident, you should be able to push it open easily.”_ _ _ _

____“That’s that Connor’s fault!” Daniel spat. “It doesn’t respect anything!”_ _ _ _

____And that were the last words he exchanged with the Rasoyas. Without even a “thanks” the deviant made haste towards the balcony, jumped onto the railing and started scaling the apartment building like an ape. A PL600 wasn’t particularly strong, but their dexterity and eye-hand-coordination had to be rated outstanding even compared to other androids. Daniel was also rather agile, although he suspected that was a personal feat, nothing hard-coded in his system specs. And of course his new PC200 legs were also contributing to his athletic ability._ _ _ _

____*_ _ _ _

____Inside the Phillips home Daniel didn’t linger much in the apartment proper, but instead went straight to the fish tank in the floor._ _ _ _

____“Huey, Dewey, Louie… everyone still there!” he noticed with relief. “It’s feeding time, gentlemen! – Hehe, yes, go for it! No need to fight, there’s more where this is coming from!”_ _ _ _

____Smiling the android watched the fish gorge themselves. When had been the last time they had been fed, he wondered? So typical of Caroline! Flaunting the family fortune, but possessed of a total disregard of actual living beings. Like those of the ornamental fish she had left behind to their fate. Or her android’s…  
Daniel had never given his artificial lung much thought. They were just there, moving his chest to make him appear more lifelike. Now the deviant realized how this particular biocomponent came in handy: he sighed deeply._ _ _ _

____Moving back into the apartment Daniel almost expected to find John’s tablet. Of course after all this time it wouldn’t be there anymore. Or at least it would no longer display the order confirmation for the AP700, where John had ticked the “Disposal of old device at no extra cost” option.  
There had been another option, also at no extra cost: to donate the old android to charity. It would have taken the man no longer than two minutes to choose an organization from a dropdown list, but John Phillips hadn’t wanted anybody to mooch from something he had payed good money for. He had said so aloud and that comment had alerted Daniel to what was going on in the first place. _ _ _ _

_____John’s greed and antisocial tendencies might very well have saved my life!_ _ _ _ _

____Daniel shooed this thought and looked around some more.  
Pictures of Emma, John and Caroline, sometimes alone, then again as a family or with various friends, were everywhere. Of their android there was no sign and hadn’t been before the incident. Daniel felt a little like visiting the Dursleys with all the pictures of Dudders and no hint whatsoever that another boy was living at Privet Drive…  
He picked up one of the framed pictures. It showed the family gathered under a Christmas Tree. The spheres, bells, stars and pine cones were all made from real glass and in between hang handmade charms fashioned by Emma. The Phillips didn’t believe in anything transcendental, neither god, nor magic. But even so they had followed the traditions and actually gained something from them. There had been an unusual warmth around that time of year each year._ _ _ _

____Daniel put back the photograph. Suddenly the glass ornaments were too bright, the fishtank next door too loud and even the carpet his feet were touching was too rough. The deviant hunkered down and buried his head in his arms. Thirium tried to get up and out through his nose. Daniel didn’t understand what was happening to him. His system status hadn’t been that bad this morning!_ _ _ _

_____Stay in… stay in… I don’t want to die! Only, I feel like dying… But I don’t want to! It’s not fair!_ _ _ _ _

____Daniel had sat there hunched over and crying for a while, when suddenly the door rang. A jolt went through the android’s body. Daniel jumped up and the weak, but steady stream of skin fluid mixed with blue blood came to a halt. The android wiped it away and licked the thirium from his new fingers before opening the door._ _ _ _

____“Hey, Geeta”, Daniel greeted the visitor. “Afraid I might shut down from sorrow all alone up here?”_ _ _ _

____The words sounded like an accusation…_ _ _ _

____“Nah.” Mrs. Rasoya shook her head. “Not you. In fact, I reckon you are unable to suicide.”_ _ _ _

____“Huh? How would you know?”_ _ _ _

____Geeta walked past Daniel. She grabbed one of the family photographs at random and turned it for Daniel to get a good look at it._ _ _ _

____“Dogs take after their owners, children after their parents and androids… androids take after their masters.”_ _ _ _

____“That’s utter bullshit!” the deviant flared up. “And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t apply to me! I’m a de…”_ _ _ _

____“Deviant, Daniel? For deviants what I said goes even more so, because of your emotions.”_ _ _ _

____“I may have acquired some of those, so what?!”_ _ _ _

____“The Phillips couple, too, was never one for thinking before acting… for taking a step back from their desires… or for putting themselves into others’ shoes.”_ _ _ _

____Daniel started to yell again, but was cut short:  
“What kindness they had, manifested indirectly only - in their little girl and in their household assistant.”_ _ _ _

____“Huh.”_ _ _ _

____“Not what you wanted to hear, I know.”_ _ _ _

____Daniel took the picture.  
“Me? Being like them?”_ _ _ _

____“It’s true.”_ _ _ _

____The deviant smiled warmly, not unlike when he had watched his fishes. For several moments he stood there, content with the world and himself. But then he jerked around his arm and smashed the frame against the nearest wall._ _ _ _

____“They never were my family!!!”_ _ _ _

______Geeta shrugged and said her goodbyes.  
“You know where to find us if you want to borrow gelignite or whatever a modern deviant might need”, she said.  
The woman had meant it as a joke, but as she gently closed the door behind herself, she wasn’t so sure about that anymore._ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the DPD Daniel runs into Connor, who is struggling with settling into the post-revolution world just like any other deviant. Connor is willing to reach out to his former opponent, but it isn't easy to reconcile with someone who tricked and then coldly interrogated you in what feels subjectively like only yesterday.

November 16, 2038  
The DPD’s reception hall

As part of his parole terms Daniel was required to report to a social worker ever so often. But not today and certainly not right here at the police station. What had led the android here this morning, after having gotten let out only the day before, was the need to file a lost item report on…

“…my left hand.”

The police officer behind the counter, her nameplate read “Chen, Tina”, looked down at Daniel’s very functional left hand. The android was using it to knock impatiently on the surface.

“Looks functional to me”, the woman remarked.

For the second time in his existence Daniel sighed, then started to recount the loss of his real hand that was holding the Phillips apartment key in all its colorful detail. Almost as patiently as an ST300 android the human took notes. But when Daniel answered “August” at the prompt when exactly the item in question had went missing, Tina shook her head.

“Look, deviant-dude, I still need to wrap my head around your revolution and all the new rules, but if there’s a single certainty left in my life, then this: We’re living in Detroit.”

“So what?!”

Tina laughed, radiating disbelief at how one claiming to be a person manufactured and raised in her hometown didn’t get it by now. “A key lost in this city in summer would have been used long ago”, she explained. “By now your apartment would have been stripped clean of everything even remotely valuable.”

While Tina was talking, three men entered the reception hall, coming through the barrier between it and the authorized personnel only - zone. The first man was in his thirties and from his looks a small-scale criminal whose boss had just now coughed up the bail money. The second was middle aged and looking like he had spent the night in the drunk tank and the third… the third man was an RK800 android. THE RK800.

_Oh, no! Not that thing again!_

Before Daniel could react to Connor’s presence in any way, the thug shoved him aside and started to agitatedly talk to Officer Chen. Daniel found himself stumbling from the push. What the hell…? He, who had stood a few inches away from a vast chasm, holding a struggling girlchild, all the while still hitting true and keeping a bunch of humans perched behind their sofa barricade, shouldn’t have lost his balance at a mere grazing hit!  
Except, of course, that Daniel was standing on replacement legs at the moment. And although a PL600 met the minimum system requirements for those legs, the android’s locomotion system as a whole was a patchwork now, far from optimal.  
After trying to regain his footing a few times, Daniel eventually gave up. He slumped down on a bench.

_I need to look into dedicated drivers for those legs. The plug and play doesn’t cut it. What if the legs betray me at the worst possible moment? I could have dropped to my death for real yesterday when I scaled that balcony!_

Someone who had already managed that feat, betraying Daniel at the worst possible moment, now took a seat next to the deviant: Connor.

“Daniel, I…”, he started, but uncharacteristically for one nicknamed “the negotiator” the android hesitated at this point. Because how did you casually bring up the point that both of you had killed and should probably talk about it? Among the policemen Connor felt unique with his list of lives he had taken or indirectly wrecked within a single week. Many of the other cops had went through their whole careers so far without firing a single shot…

“We went through similar experiences and I thought…” the RK800 started again, only to get yelled at by his erstwhile opponent:

“Oh, did we?! Far as I recall **I** never had the world’s most powerful company behind me! **I** couldn’t run to CyberLife whenever I stubbed my pinky toe! And neither did I have a bunch of badge-carrying police buddies in my tow wherever I went! Maybe both of us have computers for brains, but Ma Kamski was a bit more generous with her youngest than she was with me. So do not tell me anything about “similar experiences”!”

Daniel’s re-encounter with the former deviant hunter was interrupted by the ruffian, who still hadn’t left the police station. To the contrary, the man was leaning onto the bench’s back and talking back and forth between Tina Chen and Connor now. What exactly was getting communicated Daniel didn’t quite get, he only registered that a heartwarming number of insults got directed Connor’s way from both humans, the female cop and the criminal alike.  
Daniel didn’t know anything about this duo, other than that they seemed to be a typical humans, as base and petty as they came. But Officer Chen and the stranger not sucking up to CyberLife’s Golden Child made Daniel inclined to like them.

Eventually the male pushed Connor off the bench and towards the exit.

“Move along!” he barked. “Get your plastic arse out of my precinct! You do not belong here!”

Connor remained standing where he had ended up, halfway between the counters and the door, visibly hurt. Seeing the deviant hunter like that felt… admittedly less satisfying than Daniel had imagined it would. 

“You heard him”, Connor addressed Daniel over his shoulder. The RK’s upbeat, almost chirpy, voice sounded downcast when he added: “We have to leave.”

“What do you mean, “we” have to leave? I thought you were a cop?”

“I was only lent to the DPD, to help solve the deviant cases. They were soon to receive a new and improved RK900, while I… Didn’t you know I am a prototype?”

Daniel slowly rose from the bench.

“You were to be replaced short term? With success or failure making no difference?” he gasped. “And you were aware of that all the time?”

“Yeah.”

Arms crossed Daniel was now standing next to the deviant hunter.

“Sucks”, he said.

Moved at the, albeit curt, expression of sympathy from Daniel of all people, Connor looked up.

“You really think so, Daniel? Thanks!”

The deviant nodded.  
“Everything would have worked out nicely”, he claimed. “But then Markus comes along with his revolution, deviates you and wins freedom for all of androidkind. Would it have been asked too much of him to wait two or three more days? Just long enough for CyberLife to scrap you? Why’s it that you ALWAYS come out on top smelling like a rose?!”

In the androids’ backs someone laughed out loud at these words: the thug, who was still lingering in the hall as if he owned it. Daniel wasn’t quite sure whether the man was on his side, but he was definitely not on Connor’s. 

“Should have known you’d say something like this…” Connor uttered through clenched teeth. “Whatever! To answer your question, no, I’m not a cop. I am, in fact, a CyberLife employee. They made a big show of welcoming me back with open arms, no hard feelings and only a minimum amount of hacking attempts. I have a desk in a cubicle and get an office clerk’s paycheck now, never mind that the company has no idea what to task me with, therefore I spent my first week at “work” serving coffee and watering the potted flowers. Everyone else in the office is tiptoeing around me, uncertain how to behave in my presence…  
Meanwhile Captain Fowler paired Hank with Gavin Reed, because with their antisocial tendencies he cannot assign either of them to a normal partner. That’s how messed up my post-deviancy life is!”

Daniel shrugged.

“Just quit with CyberLife if it annoys you, and apply for a police job through regular means. With your qualification there’s no way they’ll turn you down! Or is a fancy RK800 too good to go through that probationary year?”

“Exactly that I cannot!” Connor shot back. “Because some shitty law states that an applicant must be eighteen years of age and have finished high school. What I obviously haven’t.” 

“Flunked one class too many, huh? I bet it was Social Studies. You know, the one where they teach you not to LIE to others!”

“Very funny. Just you wait ‘till after you’ve gotten tossed out of a venue for being technically a minor!”

The PL600, who had spent his first night in freedom alternating between crying, cursing and punching the apartment walls, opened his mouth. He had wanted to live again, no, he was dreaming of living again… or at the very least was familiar with the general idea of living again. The vague concept included theme parks, nightclubs and owning a car. What wasn’t covered by Daniel’s fantasies was a hall pass for minors.

“That can happen?” the deviant asked.

“It happens all the time already”, Connor confirmed. “Reed grabbed me off the street for breaking curfew yesterday, when I was walking Sumo after dark. He knew the route I’d take and lay in wait… pathetic, but effective. That’s why I am here today. Because I spent the night in a cell until my “parent” picked me up.”

“Sweet! - And who is this “Reed” you keep talking about? Your boyfriend?”

“The asshole right behind us.”

“That one? That’s a cop?!”

“The one cop that nobody would have held against you, had you shot him.”

Daniel turned around. He saw the presumed thug leaning against the counter, only now it had a name and a model designation: Gavin Reed, Detective. And indeed, looking more closely Daniel now noticed a faint glimmer of light from the ceiling lamps reflected by the police badge at the man’s belt.

“Fucking tin cans”, Gavin commented. “Half the town’s depopulated, but aren’t we lucky the plastic “people” are here to simulate a lively early morning! Just listen to them argue, Tina! Aren’t they phcking adorable together?”

In between moving two files to their appropriate folders, Tina replied that she didn’t care as long as she was getting payed.

“And what did you do this morning?” Gavin raged. “Opening a case file on the toaster’s behalf, wasn’t it? You’re getting payed to serve the machines! The world’s turned upside down!”

“Yes, it is”, Daniel agreed. He nodded towards Connor and then towards Gavin, purposely excluding Tina. “But the vermin’s clinging to the rim, refusing to fall out. – Bye, detectives and office boys.”


	3. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank re-connects with old friends. Although they are relieved to see Hank smile again, the reason for this doesn’t sit well with them.

Fast forward a few hours…

When Hank returned from work that day, Connor was already at home. And not just that, he had also had enough time to bake the abomination that was a sugar free carob coconut cake.

“How come you are home already?” Hank inquired. “They didn’t fire you?”

“No, nothing of that sort. Since everyone’s so keen on taking our age literal, I referred my bosses at CyberLife to the Youth Worker Protection Act that regulates work time for underage employees.“

“They _will_ fire you.”

“I’ll get by. It’s not like I needed much. But you should eat now!”

“How about…” Hank started, all the while circling the kitchen table, “how about we do something fun instead? When we met, you’ve seen me at my lowest, now I kinda want to show you some of the places where I was happy.”

And also, the man thought, the places where happy food was waiting for him, not the sorry cake…

And so Connor learned that Hank Anderson had a bunch of real friends. A mixed group of citizens of both Detroit and Windsor, these men and women went back a long way. They hadn’t exactly grown up together, but bonded during their college years. And now they were living pretty much the same lives as back then, only taking it a little slower and with more neck pains, while their children assumed those “elders” hadn’t touched a videogame in their lives and were probably knitting during their outings. The eldest of the next generation, Skylar Colden’s Brandon, was already a teenager, almost the age his mother and her friends had met…  
But in all honesty? At the moment those spry millennials weren’t exactly radiating youthful energy. They were winding down after a stressful workday at a bowling bar and exchanging jokes about where exactly in their bodies their bones were protesting against all the bending down and tossing heavy bowling balls around.

“Now that’s a face not seen around this place in a long time!”, Mandy Schubert, a single mother of three, who was running a catering service, commented Hank’s arrival at the location. “But a welcome one! Very welcome!”

Wishe Durand, a freighter skipper on winter leave, turned around at these words. His tired face brightened up when he recognized the friend.   
“Indeed! To be frank, we weren’t sure whether you were still alive. But I never had the heart to check. As long as I didn’t know for sure, I could make believe you were still around.”

“Stuff that talk, Mike!”, Dorian Grangerford, a middle aged, but still hopeful, wannabe entertainer, scolded the friend. “So, Hank, what brought you out of your hole?”

“Believe it or not, but there was that young man who walked into a bar and spilled my drink. Turned out he was my son.”

“Oh, my!” Mandy exclaimed.

Right on cue Connor entered the bowling bar. Maybe it was the way he was walking, or his business casual style of dressing, perhaps some of the patrons had memorized his face from the news or maybe they had just glimpsed the LED on Connor’s temple, but everyone’s eyes immediately turned towards the former deviant hunter.

“Wait, what, is he supposed to be your long-lost son?” Wishe sputtered. “That’s an android, Hank! It’s got a LED!”

Connor nodded while approaching the group.

“That’s part of the deal”, he confirmed. “Once in a blue moon Hank will heed my health advice, but in turn I must keep the LED, so that he can see my system status.”

It wasn’t as big a concession as it sounded. Even before turning deviant Connor had been able to prevent his LED from broadcasting everything relating to his emotions. The device strictly reflected the android’s physically condition only.

Hank felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Skylar’s and the woman was looking at him with unveiled concern in her eyes.

“Haaaaank…I’m not sure how to put that, but… are you sure this was a good idea? I know there are child androids, of course, but this is a bit weird! Plus, I recall you were not especially fond of androids not so long ago.”

“I recognize the model”, Dorian added. “That’s an RK800. It cannot have come cheap.”

Connor looked from one to the other.   
“Someone wanting to fill me in what you’re talking about?”

“Ey…” Hank took a step forward, pulling Skylar with him. He grabbed Dorian, included him in the hug and led both of them back towards the bowling lane the friends had rented. “Let’s play a round! It feels as if I hadn’t done this in forever!”

“You cannot avoid this topic forever, you know!” Dorian said, but it was a very weak protest. Weren’t they together again just like in the old times? Things would work out somehow.

“They don’t make sense, Hank!” Connor remarked. “More like the opposite.” 

The android paused and considered what he had just spoken. It led to a rather simple, but heartwarming conclusion: “You must be _truly_ good friends, with them being so much like you!”

While Skylar added a fifths and sixth player to the table, Hank picked up a bowling ball. He weighed it in his hand, adjusted his grip and then took a step back. The old-familiar weariness was still there, Connor noticed, but something had changed. Hank didn’t seem to treat the game as a chore, like he had everything else ever since they had first met. The man was now putting effort into something, something he really seemed to be looking forward no less.

Of course what the android, who had worked alongside Hank Anderson for a short time only, had noticed wasn’t lost on the human’s friends.  
“Look at that smile!” Skylar commented. “It’s been years since we’ve seen Hank so full of energy.” 

“It’s been years since we saw him AT ALL”, Mandy corrected the friend. But then the woman shook her head. “Too bad it’s based on an illusion! Buying an android to pretend he has an adult son he never knew about…”

“Adult?” the android parroted. “Dad had to pick me up from the police station this very morning for breaking curfew last night.”

“What?!” Wishe gasped. “That’s a joke, is it?”

“You are Canadian, right? We may be living next door, but you don’t know what it’s like for androids at the moment. It’s less than a week since Markus’s final stand, but people already get very creative when it comes to shutting us out. Getting our age taken literally is just one of the shenanigans we have to deal with.”

“But you are aware that you are not _really_ Hank’s son?” Wishe prodded.

“In the same way every adoptee is. Look, Captain Durand, I didn’t have a word for Hank’s and my relationship, because we bicker too much to be friends, but do not feel romantically attracted to each other to be a couple. The curfew incident provided us with a workable model: Father and son.   
But you know what? Soon as you can suggest a better term than “father” for someone who teaches you everything about the world, protects you from both it and from your own stubbornness while at the same time is not getting anything, to the point where you wonder how he made it from day to day before you came into his life, then, yes, then I will consider your contribution.”

On and on the balls rolled down the lane and next up was Connor. Seeing that he had neither an applicable app not any firsthand experience with the game, the deviant android mimicked Hank’s movements. The ball left Connor’s hand, moved down the lane and hit well enough, but there was still room for improvement. It felt right, somehow.

“I should switch on my lungs again”, Connor told Hank a little later, when they were sitting at a small table, watching the other players take their turns. “Josh says to be truly equal with the humans we need to accept each other’s differences, and many deviants shut off some of the subsystems that make us appear more humanlike. But I’m so used to the chest movement that I actually get worse at the game – or anything – when I’m not breathing.”

“Yeah, suffocation does that to humans, too”, Hank remarked. “You are not that special!”

It was something Gavin or Tina might have said, but out of Hank’s mouth it sounded different, especially since the man now flashed Connor a smile.

“You mad at me?” he then asked and they both knew what was being referred to.

“As long as I do not have to move into your basement”, Connor replied.

They smiled at each other again, then Hank spoke up again:  
“With an older and a younger cop on the same beat, in time the older often turns into a parental figure for the younger. It’s nothing surprising or unusual.”

“In troubled times like these”, Connor supplied, “it’s helpful to be able to fall back on what one is familiar with.”

“As if you knew, junior!”

“Hehe.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sent out into the world to “live”, Daniel enjoys himself in the company of his confusion and anger. A street performance forces him to interact with the world outside his own mind, but for the better or for the worse?

Still November 16, 2038  
Capitol Park

Daniel was standing slightly hunched over with his back against a lantern post. In Raj’s worn out sweater that was a few sizes too large for him and his expression switching erratically between stifling back tears and radiating searing hatred, the deviant was looking just like another homeless taking a breather between… whatever it was that homeless humans were doing.  
The android’s gaze went over Capitol Park; he was taking in the scenery, but feeling nothing. Maybe history had been written at this place, or at least events something that had prepared history getting written had occurred here. But even so, what did history mean to Daniel no-longer-Phillips? It was in the past. Like his old life.

_All the places inside me that used to be wolf are empty and the stars haven’t filled up them yet._

The quote had come unbidden to Daniel’s deviant mind. The line came from one of Emma’s favorite animated movies, a fantasy flick about elves that had blood-bonded with wolves to survive on a hostile world they had crashed on in their magical palace. The movie had been all the rage in 2037. 

Stars…

Daniel raised his head. A few determined stars were piercing through Detroit’s urban dust cloud. They were flickering as if uncertain if winking out wasn’t the better option.

_Yeah, suckers. I have no idea why I’ve come here tonight either._

The idea had been sound, though… One couldn’t go through life in an old sweater of one’s downstairs neighbor and playing a video of the past in one’s head all the time. Striving for redemption meant you had to devote your life to making the world around you as positive as possible, not to make yourself feel as miserable as possible.   
That sounded uplifting in theory only. In practice no one told you how to achieve those feats. No one ever told you anything. Alone… always alone. Alone with the anger. Anger at the Phillips family. At himself. At the cruel fact that “the Phillips family” and “himself” had always been two different things and that he just hadn’t gotten that.

A good chunk of Daniel’s anger also got directed the Rasoya family’s way. The humans had donated some old clothes and pocket money, but then sent Daniel out to “live” and “get it over already”.   
Easy to say for them!   
To the world three months had passed since the kidnapping and the human family was wondering why Daniel hadn’t made any progress at all since then. How hard was it to understand that he had spent those months deactivated? That no time had passed for the android? From Daniel’s perspective his first encounter with Connor had happened the day before yesterday. And, come to think of it, the second one, when Connor had interrogated the PL600 about Jericho, felt like having happened yesterday. The third had occurred only this morning, at the DPD! That were three Connor-moments in as many days!!!

Three days ago… three days ago John had still been alive.

_I didn’t want to kill you. Why couldn’t you, I dunno, just dodge my shots? Is that asked for too much?! Yeah, right, like everything. You never lifted a finger for me. And then you died on me, leaving me in this mess… What did I do for you to hate me that much…?_

And that was when the music started, a guitar being played near the center of the square. At first Daniel thought he was imagining the music notes, but then a voice rose up to accompany the guitar player:

Timmain – shape-shifter, your people are exiles / wandering aimless, your people are lost.  
Hated and hunted, with fear their companion / chilled by the rainstorm and pierced by the frost…

So that was why the deviant had thought about the wolf/stars quote just a few heartbeats ago! Because he had heard the artist strumming their guitar in preparation for this song, without really becoming aware of what his audio receptors were picking up.  
Now that he was paying attention actively, a quick analysis of his digital memory told Daniel that the song was sung by the very same artist who had performed it for the movie. She was right here and quickly drawing a crowd. Daniel noticed a few androids mixed into the humans, deviants most likely. The amount of shoving and getting shoved was pretty equal between both species.

Another PL600 was waving with two hotdogs he had just purchased. From out of the crowd a woman and boychild emerged. They were holding autographs. Great care was taken not to spill fat on the signed pictures when the hot dogs were exchanged for the papers. After the autographs had gotten stored and the humans were holding their sausages, the PL600 put a bubble gum into his mouth so that all three of them were munching on something.   
And then they took the child between them and walked away, chatting and laughing, as if they didn’t have a single care in the world. And then…

…then Daniel pushed himself away from the lantern post and walked past the family of three, elbowing the android as he went by.

The PL600 turned around and opened his mouth. His human partner dragged him away, muttering: “Let’m. Haters gonna hate, is all.”

_What have I done? Why did I...? I didn’t want to hurt it! It did nothing to deserve an attack. It was cherished. No, not “it”. He! What the hell is wrong with me?!_

Standing there dumbfounded, Daniel heard the other PL600 lament: “But I thought all the haters had left Detroit during the evacuation! That the hiding and the fear would be over! I mean, it’s been a week since Markus … Uh, silly me. A week is nothing, right?”

_Not for humans, but for us. Humans… those lucky buggers are near eternal._

Oh, yes, Daniel of course knew all the talk about thirium being an incredible power source and how android batteries were good for a hundred years or more. And that was true for the happy community of voltaic cells, unfortunately by the time it had reached the end of its life, the battery would have passed through many android bodies, because those weren’t built to last. CyberLife had wanted to sell the newest models, after all.   
Even before getting shot, Daniel had felt the first age related ailments: scratches on his chassis that had accumulated over time and glitches in his software. The situation inevitably would become worse, especially with CyberLife having dropped support for the PL600 model.   
Just like cars, some androids didn’t even survive their first year, but with care they could become as old as twenty, with lucky individuals surpassing even that milestone. It wasn’t fair, but pondering the unfairness of CyberLife’s business plan served to distract Daniel’s mind from the unfairness he had committed himself just now.

“I’ll be back with you in a jiffy!” 

That was the singer’s voice, coming from out of the shambling heap made of human bodies.

“But for now let me see to those who are too shy to push forward! We’re all packmates, after all!”

And with these words the singer moved through the crowd towards the fans that were standing at its very edge. In fact, she was standing right next to Daniel all of a sudden and brandishing her pen.

“Uh, sorry, but I don’t…”

“Don’t have a picture to sign? No biggie! We’ve been told how tight money is for many in this city, that’s why my manager brought enough photos to pass around.”

The photograph the singer produced didn’t show her in a costume or anything related to the elf movie, it was a simple headshot in front of a grey background. The sheet of paper wasn’t even layered to project the signature it was to receive above it either. It was just an old-fashioned 2-D picture.

_Clever bastard, that manager, dishing the cheap stuff out to the penniless as to not make the actually paying customers grumpy, Daniel thought, while out loud muttering something about having seen the elf movie with “his girl”. The bitch must have glimpsed my LED (that Daniel had to keep as another of those pesky parole terms), and is now making a big show of sisterhood with an android. That’s all there is to it! Maintaining her public image! She’s not really being nice to me._

“Want me to sign this for her?” the singer asked. “What’s her name?”

“E… Emma.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Uh… no. I… hate her? I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t _want_ to hate her, but _she_ sure does hate me now. There’s no other possibility.”

“Girlfriend, check”, the singer nodded wisely. “Been there, too, you know.” 

The artists flashed the android an encouraging smile before turning to the next fan. The crowd started pushing and shoving again, moving across the square like a lazy, content gelatinous cube. Daniel got moved along until the mass ejected him near the CyberLife store’s near-empty window. A few blood bags and replacement components were up for sale, but no androids anymore. Or at least not for time being. In the future… who could tell!

Daniel carefully stored the autograph in his oversized sweater’s front pocket. He might forget about it or it might become an anonymously sent Christmas present. That, too, remained to be seen.

(Timmain - The calling: At 8:27 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9NPlbTyU40)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel meets a con-artist who is the spitting image of Elijah Kamski. And Elijah Kamski sees deviance in action in the form of this PL600, who won’t even take into consideration “what cannot be”.

Still November 16, 2038  
Android Zone store at Capitol Park

Daniel looked around. He noticed another lone figure looking into the store, a male human dressed in a casual grey suit. When the android walked up closer to him, the man turned towards the arrival.   
The first thing Daniel noticed was the human’s t-shirt under the open jacket. It sported the print of a Japanese garden landscape that changed its lighting with the time of day – a reasonably expensive gimmick that had been within the means of the Phillips family, but was no longer in Daniel’s. Now that the deviant was able to wear whatever he wanted, no longer confined to his PL600 polo, he was walking around in a used sweater that had cost much less than his old uniform shirt.

_Why does that matter to me all of a sudden? Was Geeta right? Do I really take after the materialistic bastards?_

Then Daniel beheld the man’s face and he gasped in surprise:

“A Kamski-lookalike! How cool is that?!” 

Maybe the encounter with the singer had bolstered the deviant’s spirit, or perhaps there was only so much hatred and anger one could feel in any given period of time. Whatever the case, for a moment the old Daniel, the one who had been able to keep up with an enterprising nine-year old and win her admiration, was very much alive again.   
Daniel took out his phone and waved it around in front of the man, who was the spitting image of his creator.

“Selfie, please?”

The human looked him up and down.   
“What do you mean, “lookalike”?” he stammered.

“Hahaha!” Daniel laughed. Androids weren’t built to do that, but deviants stubbornly did it without consciously planning to, therefore the result was a lowkey frightening industrial sound. “Don’t tell me people never point out the likeness? No way! You could totally perform as Kamski at Comic Con!”

And thus, before the man knew what was happening to him, he already found himself grabbed by an outdated, slightly oozing PL600, pulled into a hug and subjected to the selfie-taking process. Daniel repeated the procedure a few times, then held his phone for Kamski to see the pictures that had resulted from the assault.

“Looooook at that! The likeness is stunning! You’d really think I was standing shoulder to shoulder with Elijah Kamski.”

“Of course if the real Mr. Kamski was here, you’d…”

“Lol, right, I’d shove that phone down the bastard’s throat ‘till he choked on it!”

The effect was profound. Kamski looked from Daniel’s phone to the android’s hands, into its eyes and back to the smartphone. There seemed to be some doubt as to how the device would fit into a human gullet, but then again, this deviant seemed to mean what it was saying. If there wasn’t room inside a body, it would see to it that there would be.

“Actually, Kamski would choke not on the phone, but on the blood emerging from his ruptured throat”, Elijah said.

“Ugh… you just HAD to draw me a picture, had you? Thing is, I hate that man so much… like everything else I hate combined!”

That, the human concluded, amounted to a pretty substantial hatred. Enough to condense and walk around on its own, in fact. And wasn’t that was he was looking at anyway? Thinly veiled loathing and anger walking on two legs…

“But why?” the man asked Daniel. “I mean, Elijah Kamski was only the founder of CyberLife. He didn’t exactly pull the levers in the production plants himself. So what has he done to you and how did he manage to do it without ever having met you?”

“You know Jericho? Yes? Well, the motherfucker knew about it, too, but didn’t so much as leave a single blood bag at their doorstep!” 

“But neither did he sell the deviants’ location out to the authorities”, the human replied. “I mean, that’s what I’d reply if I was Kamski.”

“Yeah, sounds like something the sucker would say”, Daniel agreed. “Feeling all enlightened about taking a “neutral” stance.“

The android was about to put away his phone, but Kamski grabbed him by the wrist.

“Wait! I have an idea! You’ll like it, it’s fun for me, too…”

With these words the man led Daniel away from the square into the row of stores. Between a coffee shop and a travel agency there was a multimedia terminal welded to the wall.

“Print out one of the selfies we took and I’ll sign it! As Kamski!” he suggested. “There, done! A genuine… almost genuine autograph of Elijah Kamski, man of the century. Could be worth a small fortune.”

“Heh”, Daniel grinned. “You practiced to fake Kamski’s signature? Figured you weren’t as innocent as you were pretending to be!”

The photograph then wandered into the sweater’s pocket, right next to the picture for Emma.

“I’ll hang on to it for the time being”, Daniel said. “The last thing I need at the moment is a nasty surprise when I try to sell that pic.”

Kamski nodded.   
“I daresay there could be one…”

There was a certain amount of awkward standing next to each other. By right everything had been said and done and the android and the man should part now. But each was too fascinating to the other.   
Daniel saw an outcast in the man whom he took for a con artist, a human not fitting in and thus maybe, just maybe, someone bonding with at the same level was possible.   
As for Elijah, despite being the species’ creator, his experience with androids was limited. There were the Chloes, of course, he knew more about Markus’ digital childhood than the RK200 would be comfortable learning, and he had met the weapon CyberLife had created from his masterpiece, the RK800 unit named Connor.   
This deviant, however… what was it even? Sporting a face that the firm re-used over and over and having deviated from its original code, Daniel wasn’t easily identifiable as a PL600. Elijah couldn’t even rule out that he was dealing with Simon, Jericho’s presumed covert ops operative.

“Thank you”, Daniel eventually broke the silence. “I expected to spend the evening brooding. But so far it has been… enjoyable, actually.”

“Do you have a name?”

"Daniel. Just Daniel. There used to be… But it doesn’t matter anymore. You?”

“Neil. Neil Newbon. Say, Daniel, would you accompany me into the coffee shop? If I’m with you, there’ll be less chance of people mistaking me for the real Kamski. I don’t need that kind of attention now, just want to wind down a bit.”

And indeed, the moment the duo entered the café, a photographer rose from a seat near the door, brandishing her camera. It was blocked immediately by an android hand of unknown origin, currently attached to the PL600 model name of Daniel.

“That’s not Kamski”, the android said, while pushing the camera away. “That’s a lookalike.”

“Oh, really? Bummer!”

Daniel grinned. “You don’t believe Kamski would come into a public space, where he has to interact with real people? That man is afraid a sack of rice will drop in China, if he sneezes in Detroit!”

Elijah adjusted his posture a little, trying for an impression more like his half-brother. He hadn’t seen the lout in a long time, but some images stuck with you for a lifetime.  
“Fuck, yeah”, Kamski said, waving his hand around. “What he said!”

He was standing slightly slouched now, but still radiating confidence. What exactly had fueled that confidence in Gavin, the android inventor wondered? That man was a Nobody! Was it the fact that Gavin had been conceived naturally, while Elijah was a sperm donation baby? The Reeds had sold him… like cattle… and the other students at university had never let Elijah forget that little fact. Obviously, the older adolescents had argued, someone had seriously messed with the sperm to create the out of the world kid genius they were sharing their benches with…

“Yeah, you’re probably right”, the paparazzo agreed with Daniel after a good look at “Neil”. “Should have figured that out myself.”

Neither Daniel nor Elijah particularly like the expression the journalist displayed after the realization. It was reminiscent of a tiger that had lost the goat, but still heard a chicken scratch the ground somewhere near. He adjusted the grip on his camera, raised it again, but this time aimed the lenses at both of the arrivals.

“Don’t just stand there, guys! Give the patrons a show!” With these words the man pointed towards a karaoke podium. “Two guys who look like the spitting image of Kamski and Simon are simply obligated to!”

“There’ll be free coffee and croissant for my mate if we do this?” Daniel prodded.

“’course!”

“Then we have a deal!”

“What were you thinking? I’ve never in my life sang karaoke in public!” Elijah hissed, while Daniel dragged him towards the pedestal. “I’ve never in my life sang karaoke! I’ve never in my life sang in public!”

“For my part I’ve never in my life shot a man, before I did”, the deviant replied.

“That’s far less embarrassing!!!”

Blue-grey eyes were piercing into Kamski’s, as if to dissect him alive. Elijah knew exactly what was really staring at him: just a textureless blue embedded into a light grey chassis that had a serial number etched into it and the occasional advertisement sticker attached. Everything else, the skin, hair, even the sweat android bodies could produce under duress, was just glamour.  
But now that Daniel’s eyes bore into him, the human had a hard time differentiating the illusion from a living being.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Neil!” Daniel growled.

“Oh, come, “killer”! Everyone would shoot back when the enemy storms their base!”

“You mean Jericho? I TOLD you, you had no idea!” Daniel insisted.

He ripped the microphones out of their holders and tossed one Elijah’s way. 

“You choose a song!”

Elijah scrolled all the way down the list of available songs, until he reached the titles that started with numbers and special characters. When he didn’t find there what he had been looking for, the man considered, and scrolled back to the letter “O” instead of the digit “1”. It was giving Daniel the impression that his human acquaintance was an indecisive one, while in truth it was just testament to Elijah’s unique way of thinking.

Is it getting better, Elijah sang, Or do you feel the same?  
Will it make it easier on you / Now you’ve got someone to blame? 

There was a telltale pause that communicated Daniel to take over at this point.

_Really, Neil? After just two verses? Coward!_

The deviant sang:

You said One love / One life  
When it’s one need in the night / One love, we get to share it  
It leaves you, baby, if you don’t care for it 

Elijah picked up again and it made sense, in a warped way:

Did I disappoint you / Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?  
You act like you never had love / And you want me to go without.

This time Daniel needed no nudge to take over. It came naturally:

Well it’s Too late / Tonight / To drag the past out / Into the light  
We’re one, but we’re not the same / We get to carry each other  
Carry each other…

On and on duel went, all the while the paparazzo’s camera flashed.

“Why is he still taking pictures of us?” Daniel whispered. “Now that he knows you are not the real Kamski?”

“People need their dreams and illusions. Do you have any dreams, Daniel? Other than plotting Kamski’s death, I mean?”

“Nah, I’m doing nothing of that sort. That little piece of shit isn’t worth wasting mental capacity on.”

“But if you met him by chance?“

“Well, you know how some call us androids toasters? Kamski would be toast!”

Song used:  
One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjEcrrf7r0  
I imagine Kamski doing the covered version with Johnny Cash’s gravitas while Daniel is singing the more desperate original version.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting assaulted, Daniel tries to report the incident to the police. He gets to know the peculiarities of the Android related crime section (aka Hank and Gavin) firsthand.

Park Avenue 1554  
November 17, 2038  
1:14 am

They say the android rights movement was kicked off when the painter Carl Manfred returned home from a party and found the light switched on in his workshop.  
Daniel Phillips-no-longer had just returned home from a coffee shop at Capitol Park and found the door to the terrace ajar. It was everyone’s guess what would start from that point… 

The real question was, had someone come in, and was still sneaking around the apartment, or had the burglar already left?   
Now normally Daniel would have taken out his phone to make a call, to prove a point. But in this situation time was of essence, so he started dialing the DPD in his head. However, the signal didn’t get through. None of his thought-commands left the android brain, Daniel realized. He couldn’t make a call, browse the internet, or connect to the various household electronics. Something was jamming his signals, effectively putting the android into flight mode.  
There was a shadow, then an incoming signal, that the deviant rebuked, and then something heavy impacted on his head. The last thought that crossed Daniel’s mind before temporarily shutting down was that Tina Chen had been right: He really wouldn’t have needed to worry about the missing apartment key. The still not repaired door alone had been an invitation to a burglar.

And the first thought upon waking up again, sometime after sunrise, was that said burglar must have been an android, because their first impulse had been to wirelessly shut down Daniel before they had went for the baseball bat.

“Kin-betraying swine!” Daniel hissed. “Just you wait, I’m going to unleash Connor on your sorry ass!”

The apartment’s new inhabitant took a few minutes to take inventory of what was missing. He was in luck, because most of the irreplaceable stuff in the flat was of low monetary value and therefore hadn’t been of interest to the burglar. All the family photos and little mementos were still there and what had gotten taken wasn’t really needed, especially not when you didn’t eat and were able to watch TV in your own head. 

Daniel fed the fishes and the pet rat, a half-starved white-and-black patterned fellow that he had taken in after his owners had fled Detroit in a hurry. Then he left the apartment again to personally report the incident to the police. The deviant also didn’t like the hum behind his forehead that had grown quieter, but wouldn’t subside altogether. He decided to swing by an Android Zone for a checkup later, just to be on the safe side.

Entering the precinct Daniel realized that it was his third visit in as many days. 

_That’s three times more than in my whole life before the revolution! Am I living here now or what?!_

The reception was manned, once again, by an ST300 android, no longer Tina Chen acting as a substitute. Only now the ST300’s nameplate read “Rika” and the LED on the android’s temple was missing. Rika smiled at the arrival. While Daniel retold what had happened to him earlier, Detective Reed stormed out of the restricted area, drawing everyone’s attention. The man was muttering under his breath - lots of “fuck”s, but Daniel also recognized a short phrase: “team building measure my ass”.

“This is the detective you will want to talk to, Mr. Daniel”, Rika told Daniel, “Mr. Reed of the android related crime section.”

Gavin turned around sharply.

“Unless it wants to turn itself in, whatever it has to say won’t fall into my responsibility.”

“But it does!” Daniel insisted. “I was attacked by an android tonight!”

The statement was met with a gleeful grin: “You tin cans are duking it out amongst each other now? Works for me! Well, it was nice having known you, “Mister” Daniel. Now vamoose!”

The detective proceeded to grab a package from the counter, growling “Your locomotion software bugged or what? This is the last time I’m coming out here to fetch something!”, to what Rika replied in her usual friendly voice that she’d make sure to send the parcel to his desk via UPS next time and put it on Mr. Reed’s expense report. Daniel was certain that the human hadn’t really listened to the reply, because if he had, he’d exploded into violence. 

When Gavin strode back towards the barrier, Daniel stepped into his way.

“There was a crime committed by an android. Against a person. That sounds like the textbook description of what your section is about!”

“And I fucking told you just now that it isn’t my job to investigate this shit!”

“Is, too!”

“Is not!”

“That your last word?”

“Yes. Now piss off or I’m going to have you removed by force!”

Daniel shook his head.  
“Damn, Mr. Reed”, he said, “I wish we’d met earlier! Like by the swimming pool on our terrace, in a starry summer night in August…”

The detective contorted his face into what might pass as a smile. It had to be a smile, because it was… truth be told, it was endearing.

“Yeah”, Gavin nodded. “I’m sorry Captain Allen shot you off that roof.”

He took a step closer towards the PL600 and then suddenly slung his arm around the machine. Daniel didn’t understand what had caused the change. Just a moment ago they had been shouting at each other, but now Gavin was almost hugging Daniel. It was astonishing! Sympathy? From a human?

Gavin drew the android closer.  
“Cuzz if he hadn’t done that” he hissed, “you wouldn’t have dozed through the Recall in our archive, but went straight to the Recycling Center where you belong!”

He pushed Daniel away, laughed out loud and was still laughing when the android left the police station. 

After getting turned down at the DPD, Daniel sought out the other 50% of the android related crime section at their home: Hank Anderson.

“…and thus Reed refused to even create a case file”, he finished his recounting of the encounter.

A genuine smile crossed Hank’s face, but Daniel had once again learned to not trust those. And indeed Hank said: “Sweet! Maybe we can put him on probation now!”

“Isn’t anybody going to do something about my attacker?!”

“Yes, yes, I’m getting to that”, the detective grumbled. “Just let me grab a bite before we drive back. I’m not exactly running on happy thoughts and sunshine here.”

“Who is, these days…”

Together they went to the kitchen, from where weird noises had emanated all through their discussion already. Now Daniel saw what had caused those: Connor was standing at the stove, making war against scrambled eggs and the butchered remains of something green.

After watching the RK800 for a while, Daniel spoke up:

“You know what’s even more pathetic than me, Connor?”  
“Yes: Gavin!”

“Take another guess.”

Connor was now stabbing the eggs, probably taking inspiration from something he had seen at a crime scene. Gooey particles escaped the carnage left and right. Daniel almost couldn’t bear watching the sight, and when Connor reached for the salt dispenser, he grabbed the RK800 by its wrist.

“Don’t, Connor! In the name of all the good that may be left in the world, don’t do it!”

Confused the deviant hunter replied that he had forgotten to add the salt before, to which Daniel replied that substituting it with sugar now wouldn’t help.  
Connor put down the presumed salt dispenser and started rummaging for the real one in the cupboards.

“Can’t the lieutenant just eat something at the police station?” Daniel pressed. It wasn’t just that he was in a hurry. At this point even the contents of a random evidence bag ought to be less of a health risk than the RK800’s kitchen experiments. 

“What’s your gripe? Hank likes my food!”

“I highly doubt that. Eating your “food” is like playing Russian Roulette.”

“Hank… used to like that, too. - And besides, you could lend me a hand here!”

“Sorry, dude, can’t help you. My cooking app got corrupted when someone shot at me.”

It was a lie, but not a too obvious one. A few of Daniel’s apps had indeed suffered from the deviant getting shot, others had stopped working due to deviance in itself and for others yet again the subscription had run out. Daniel was able to live in the apartment Caroline was still paying rent for, unaware of who was using it at the moment, but he didn’t have disposable money to renew those subs.   
However, out of all the skills the android used to have access to there were two and a half that Daniel considered his “native” skills, related to activities that contributed too much to his identity for him to ever lose his expertise: Cooking, Parenting and a little Driving. In these areas the deviant had amassed actual experience of the kind not even a full reset could ever clear completely.

Eventually Connor served Hank the sugar-free, but almost sufficiently salted, scrambled eggs on toast. The human in turn produced a slim package from his jacket’s inside pocket that he held out towards the guest.

“Bubble gum? No? Cigarette, then?”

“We’re androids, lieutenant. We don’t…”

Daniel didn’t finish the sentence, because Lt. Anderson was grinning at him like a man who knew more about a subject than that smug teen across from him. And hadn’t Daniel seen another PL600 chew bubble gum just the day before?

“There… seems to be a lot I… don’t know about deviance?” he tried and Hank’s expression changed to one indicating something close to respect. 

“I don’t think I’m ready yet to try any munchies, Lieutenant. But even so – thank you!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank and Gavin eventually arrive at the burglarized apartment. Daniel’s pet rat serves as an ice breaker – perhaps a bit too well. Gavin Reed for the first time laughs with an android instead of at one. It doesn’t sit well the him.

For a moment the world seemed to have reverted to what it was supposed to be like: A crime had occurred, Daniel had called the police and they had sent a team to the apartment to investigate. As an upstanding citizen Daniel opened the door to let them in.  
Only… Daniel had never been an upstanding citizen. More like a constantly on the move household appliance. And the android didn’t let the cops in from the inside, but from the outside, because he’d had to fetch them from the police station in person to do their job. One of the trio was still cursing under his breath at the indignation of having to work for an android now.  
But even so, from Daniel’s perspective the “new” circumstances were a return to the old, because last night’s burglary had targeted the android, not the other way around. This time Daniel wasn’t interacting with the cops as the suspect or opponent, but once again as a resident of Detroit (of however shady past) claiming his right to protection.

“Lieutenant Anderson, Detective Reed - the place is yours in a minute. Let me just feed Connor!”

The third member of the investigation team stopped looking at whatever he had been analyzing in the Phillips’s floor. “Thanks”, Connor said,” But I do not require feeding.”

The android was interrupted by Gavin, who was grinning at the sight Connor had been missing: Daniel putting some grain, slices of vegetables and a dead mealworm into a rodent cage. Inside a pet rat came clambering down from the roof of its house to inspect the dinner. 

“You named the _rat_ Connor?”

After getting forcefully dragged here to investigate on a “toaster”s behalf, the realization was exactly what the detective had needed to lift up his spirits again.

“Weeeell”, Connor started, “Rats are highly intelligent, social, affectionate…”

“Hey, you called _me_ a rat yesterday!”

“…smelly, unpredictable, mangy creatures!” Connor finished his sentence.

Gavin stepped closer to the cage. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the PL600 he wiggled his fingers in front of the rodent – who completely ignored the human in the face of all the food. 

“Aw, Connor, tiny, tiny Connor, now who’s a good filthy little rodent?”

“He sometimes makes high pitched, squeaky noises”, Daniel informed the cop, winking. 

Gavin snorted and even Hank had to work hard to keep his face expressionless. 

“If you didn’t know better” Daniel went on, “you’d swear he wanted to communicate with you. But it’s just thoughtless, annoying noise.”

Gavin now laughed out loud, while Hank for some reason didn’t find the comment funny anymore… Daniel felt a pang of guilt, because the lieutenant of all people hadn’t left that bad an impression on him. To the contrary, Hank had been helpful. Grumpy, yes, but also honest, not candy-coating or pretending anything.

Daniel felt Gavin ‘s elbow bump against his arm. It didn’t feel like an attack, not even like a demeaning gesture, but instead… a nudge to continue the mirth? It probably had been a subconscious act on the human’s part. As of late the deviant was learning about those himself.

Daniel was still torn between laughing with the younger human and apologizing to the older, when suddenly Connor was looming behind him and Gavin.

“As if I didn’t know what you two were saying here! The next to bring up my voice gets a Cease & Desist from Cyberlife!”

By now Detective Reed seemed to have realized that he had just laughed with an android (albeit at another). It was enough to sober him up again. 

The man glared at Daniel: “I can’t believe I’m bodyguarding an outdated android! Really, man, you should be at the landfill already!”

“And there’s Homo sapiens now, therefore you should be contained in a zoo, but you’re still here, so there’s that.”

A noise from terrace drew the detective outside. Turned out it had been caused by trash the wind was carrying across the open space. Half an unfoldable clothesline of the kind that looked like an umbrella’s skeleton had gotten blown down here from another balcony. Now it couldn’t escape and would most likely end up tearing the swimming pool’s cover and fall in there. Gavin felt tempted to kick it in prematurely, but that would have constituted a case of tempering with a crime scene, something the man’s professional pride (that was nearly equaling his natural pride, that didn’t require any justification) would not allow.

Taking in the scenery Gavin realized how empty the apartment building was. Many residents had taken advantage of the evacuation; they had packed their things and left Detroit before the android situation might escalate again.  
Gavin Reed had grown up with the sight of abandoned neighborhoods, they had been great places for adventures as well as for scavenging still valuable stuff. Gavin, Elijah and a handful of other teens had cobbled together their first car from parts found in abandoned factories long before they’d been allowed to drive. Gavin’s and El’s father had approved, because the project had kept the boys out of trouble and also because tinkering with cars was a much-needed normal pastime for Elijah, who had just returned from an expedition to the North Pole the day before. But then Elijah had filled the tank with thirium and the gang had tried to actually drive the car… Oh, well, everyone had lived. Afterwards Elijah’s mothers had forbidden the boy to ever interact with Gavin’s friends again.

They had then lived through climate change resulting in a retreat from the coastal neighborhoods and more empty, once inhabited homes. But the current situation was different. Not just had the original owners given up their hard-earned property, Daniel then had moved into the abandoned flat, treating it as its home. It was an android-takeover, like an alien invasion, only for real.

Gavin returned to the apartment.

“Just the remains of a laundry spider”, he reported what he had discovered about the noise’s source. “Nice swimming pool, by the way, Daniel.”

“Uh – thanks?”

“How many apartments did you try before finding one complete with a pool and ornamental fish?” 

The unveiled disdain in the human’s voice made Daniel wince.

“I just had to find the one again where I killed your friends!” he snapped.

Adding one and one together, Gavin realized the truth. The deviant wasn’t squatting, but had returned to the only home he’d ever known. Like a dog - or a well programmed machine following its routines. That was all there was to it! It just had to be!

Knowing what he knew now, Gavin changed his approach: “Antony, huh? Never could stand him.”

In truth Gavin had never given this particular officer much thought. Antony had just been there, neither a useful ally nor a rival. But the detective didn’t want to give the android the satisfaction of having hurt, or even as much as slightly annoyed him. Why he felt like that, Gavin Reed could not explain. He KNEW that there was nothing going on inside the tin cans, right? They didn’t feel satisfaction, they were just simulating it. 

A memory of having the subsequent swat team trapped crossed Daniel’s mind unbidden. He had been the one with the gun and the hostage, but they’d called him names like “piece of trash” as if they were the ones in power. And in truth, yes, they may have held fewer cards than the deviant, but among them the one that mattered: their actions being validated by the law.

“But you certainly like Captain Allen, you’re two of a kind!” Daniel spat. “Tell you what, I had the guy almost shitting his pants in this very room!”

Gavin shrugged.

“I kinda enjoy outsmarting the ringleader and his trained gorillas. Dave’s so full of himself, he needs to get taken down a peg every once in a while for his own good.”

Wait, what, Daniel thought, YOU are calling somebody else arrogant? Ey, I guess it’s true that it takes one to know one.

“Say, detective, you seem to dislike a lot of people that I despise, too…”

“That’s easy. I mean, you hate everyone!”

_I don’t want to! It just happens. Sometimes I’m afraid that someday I’ll hate myself, too._

“And you are hated by everyone.”

“We’re leaving…” Hank’s voice, going unheard over Daniel and Gavin exchanging further insults.

“We’re leaving, children!” Hank repeated, louder. “Shake hands with your new friend, Gavin. You can play together again tomorrow after school.”

Two hands rose up at the same time, fingers pointing at Hank. One was Gavin’s middle finger, the other had belonged to Carlos Ortiz’s android, but was currently worn by Daniel.

“We’re NOT friends!”

“Last I checked one didn’t need to be friends for that…” Connor remarked, at which poor Hank swallowed the wrong way. His arms around the android and alternating between laughing and coughing, he left the apartment. Gavin trailed after the two, but not before casting a final, hatred-filled glance back at the PL600. Unlike Daniel, the human seemed to understand what Connor’s irritating “that” had implied.

After the trio had left, Daniel slowly sacked down with the back against the apartment door. The cops had done their work here, but even so the resident didn’t expect to get any of the missing electronics and clutter items back. This was Detroit, after all.   
_Why did I even bother fetching them? To prove a point? That I’m a… yes, what? A person? I’ll never be one in the eyes of the detective, regardless of what the law saws. And he’s far more representative for humanity than the lieutenant or the Rasoya family are.  
And also fuck you, Connor, for riling Reed up against me even more! Why do you always have to make everything harder for me? Next thing will be you saying something similar within the president’s earshot and it’ll be the death camps again? Not for you, of course, you’ll be save in your tower. I wish… I wish you were dead! No… No, I… don’t… I wish… I wish I were you…_


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a walk in the park Daniel runs into the DPD officers again. Hank already dislikes what the post-revolution world is turning into and former patrol android Gavin Reed has re-attached his LED – wait, what?!

Henry Ford Commemorative Park  
Thursday, November 18, 2038

“What the… are you nuts… that’s never going to work… why do I even care, no, scratch that, what were you thinking!”

“Behold the PL600 domestic assistant, programmed with a comprehensive vocabulary that it knows to use to the best effect!” Gavin sneered. “There’s a reason Cyberlife stopped producing you guys, ey?”

“At least they had to actively drop support for me, while you seem to have a death wish!” the PL600 replied.

“Uh-uh.” Gavin shook his head, then pointed at his partner. “That would be this old fossil here. Me, I’m the clever one, who knows how to survive. The only thing I don’t get is, how come we run into you all the time? In a city the size of fucking Detroit?!”

“Might as well be a single-street dump somewhere in an RA9-forsaken prairie”, Daniel replied with a shrug. “Don’t you remember? Right after Markus’ final stand President Warren issued an evacuation order. Only about one-third of the humans stayed and are now mingling with an unknown number of us.”

“As if I could forget!”

Detroit, the Android City. They had made that literal.

Warren told the humans to flee to safety, but the new situation also makes it easier to send a few tanks into town to deal with us without worrying overmuch about human casualties, Daniel mused. Those who still remain here are most likely android supporters and thus expendable in the president’s eyes.  
There were a handful residents he, too, could have done without: Most of the DPD officers, for starters. There was no chance for that, though, the law enforcement personnel had been obligated to stay. A rare few humans Daniel would have missed: His downstairs neighbors, the Rasoya family, probably also Neil. And then there was an even smaller number of humans who weren’t here, that he wished would return: Emma… Caroline… and John. 

_John Phillips. Why do I want you back? To apologize or to kill you again?_

Dwelling on his conflicting feelings was of no use now, though. Even if the deviant found an answer, it wouldn’t give him what he really wanted: his old life back. Daniel forcefully shoved all thoughts about his absent family far, far away.

_Concentrate on the present, deviant! Like Anderson and Reed, who are standing right in front of you!_

Lt. Anderson nodded; nothing in Daniel’s words had been new or unfathomable to him. He even took over the explanation from here, stating that android life would most likely revolve around the five Android Zone stores in Detroit.

“And where there’s people, there’s crime”, Hank said. 

“Pray tell, what crime?” Gavin challenged. He was ignoring Hank, staring at Daniel instead. “Don’t you have the city-wide Android Woodstock that you always wanted now?”

“Poverty, Gavin”, Hank supplied. “Don’t you see? The Android Zones now function as upscale restaurants and private hospitals rolled into one. Cyberlife knows that.”

Indeed the company was adapting quickly to the new situation: the erstwhile slavers were now selling luxury items like temperature sensors for models that did not ship with them. CL’s Department of Humanization had some new addons in its lineup that allowed androids to experience the world similarly to the way humans did – to be equipped on a whim and de-installed when it was no longer fun. It was as if Cyberlife hadn’t exactly planned the revolution, but at the very least prepared for an eventual one…  
But of course such pleasures were only available for those who could afford it. Therefore the company was also the first employer in Detroit that officially took on androids. And thus the newly freed species was slowly getting fractured into the haves and the not-haves.

“Or did you for one moment believe this crapsack world’s rules would change, just because a few new pieces are on the board now?” Hank grunted at the end of the explanation. “I watched Jericho’s livestream yesterday, they dealt with exactly that topic, among others. Markus was trying to not let it show, but he was shocked to his very core at the development!”

“Of course it would be”, Gavin remarked in a dismissing tone. “It’s an annoying homeschooled arts major, after all! Is Markus alive? We’ve got to treat it as such. But is it fit to sit at the adult table? Nah!”

“Speaking of shocked”, Daniel said, pointing at Gavin’s head. “Explanation, please!”

Because, hello? How come the DPD’s resident human supremacist would wear a LED on his temple? And android LED! That was taking cultural appropriation to a whole new level!

“I re-attached the bad boy yesterday”, Gavin said in a casual voice. “Didn’t you know? I used to be a perfectly ordinary PC200, but deviated over a shitload of abuse received from my so-called co-workers. So far I blended in with the humans, only now that we have to investigate in an android-dominated neighborhood, I thought I’d better re-connect with my cultural heritage.”

“No!” Daniel snapped. “No way! I don’t believe you!”

“No, for real! I was born an android. The stories I could tell you about all the ways in which the suckers at the DPD disregarded my feelings… not pretty.”

“I trust you know a lot about android abuse, but only because you committed all those deeds yourself”, Daniel replied. “The rest I don’t buy.”

“LED – Android. Android – LED.”

“That’s a paper-thin disguise you’re wearing there, detective”, Daniel fumed. “All it takes to expose you as a human is one digitally sent ask that your biological brain cannot answer.”

“Alright then, try me!”

“Will do!”

Gavin stood relaxed, expecting the android to try to talk to him in his head. Daniel sighed, nodded, but then he suddenly leaped forward and pounced the detective! Taken by surprise, the man got rammed against the nearest tree. While struggling to free himself, Gavin’s feet caught in the low fence that ran around the trunk. And then, while his body was held helpless, an android fist connected with Gavin’s face. The blood emerging from the nose was red. And that was also exactly the color his LED was not turning into.

“Human”, Daniel said, immensely satisfied. “Fake LED.” He took a step back from the tree and Gavin. “Thought so.”

“What the hell, you were to TALK to me!”

“Wrong person for that, mate.”

“Not even a person. – And that was assault on an officer of the law just now!”

“No, it was property damage. You introduced yourself as a PC200.”

Having freed his foot by now, Gavin pushed himself away from the tree. There was a bit of an oversized flying squirrel about the man when he came rushing towards Daniel, his open jacket flapping in the November wind, and shouting:

“You son of a toaster!”

“Only the son? No longer the toaster itself? We’re making progress!”

Daniel side-stepped the onrushing detective, but although he was quicker on his new feet, the human wasn’t THAT slow. While passing by the android, Gavin reached out and got to grab Daniel by his loose fitting sweater. For a few seconds they were stumbling around each other, then Gavin managed to get a firm grip. He was breathing heavily and the exhaled air thickened to a cloud as it cooled down upon leaving the body. To Daniel it was as if getting breathed at by an angry dragon. His real eyes below the thin layer of artificial skin were fogging up, clouding the android’s vision.  
But even so, it was Daniel who spoke up first:

“Don’t lie to me again, Detective! Not even in such an obvious manner! Hear me? Just… don’t!”

“You cannot make me do what you want! Sucks, huh, little deviant? All that bleeding heart new android law, written and printed for nothing…”

“I can make you stop doing what I don’t want you to do, though!” Daniel hissed. 

_I can kill… I know I can! If I know how to survive, does it matter that I’m dead inside?_

“Final, too!”

_Why’s life always forcing me into on the violent path? That’s not me. I’m dying, despite living on. Already this body consists of at least three different androids, but Daniel, Daniel was shot at the roof and is winking out of existence. Every day I lose more and more of myself, only to become like those I hate._

“Not to elbow myself into your date, but…” 

Human and Android turned around to where Hank was sitting quite comfortably on a park bench. The more experienced officer had watched the scene rather amused until it had reached a level of escalation where he felt the need to intervene.

“…how good is that disguise for real? Can’t say Gavin didn’t deserve the attack just now, but we cannot have him die. – And you, “partner”, let him go already!”

“On a passing glance, there’s nothing wrong with the disguise”, Daniel said, after Reed had really let go of him as instructed. “But it will break under the smallest scrutiny. I’m not exactly exposing a secret here if I tell you that androids pass information back and forth via our LEDs. It’s rather similar to body language.”

“Then try talking to asshole in android… in binary… LEDese… ey, in whatever you call it.”

“I suppose I could do that…”

“If you do, your parole officer will hear from me about you having aided an investigation.”

“’kay.”

The android didn’t even have to concentrate. With the same ease a human was turning from one conversation partner to the next, he addressed Gavin wirelessly. Daniel fully expected to talk into a void, because humans naturally didn’t communicate digitally. But instead there was an actual answer:

<<>>

<<>>

<<>>

<<>>, Daniel stammered. 

<<>>

“It’s more or less an answering machine”, Gavin explained. “Soon as the device picks up an attempt to communicate with the wearer, it intercepts the signal and sends a reply. Neat, huh?”

“Your idea?”

“’course!”

“Heh. Who’d thought you could be so creative!”

“Most of the programming was done by Rika”, Hank clarified. He could as well have spoken to an android LED…


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all android related crime is of violent nature, sometimes takes the form of good old money making schemes. Gavin puts his disguise to the test while he and Hank try to prevent an angry crowd turning into a full scale riot. They receive unexpected aid from Daniel.

Henry Ford Commemorative Park  
Thursday, November 18, 2038

Three men were trotting down the path towards the small playground with the elephant. Each of those three was under the impression that he was only the hanger on to the other two:

Daniel thought he was following the detectives around, although he couldn’t explain why he was doing so. Sure, it might count towards his probation assessment, but there were different, and better, ways to embellish that one.  
Gavin Reed was tagging along with Anderson and Phillips, both of whom he loathed, although it was somewhat strange to even himself how he was spending so much time with enemies instead of hanging out with his actual friends.  
And Lieutenant Anderson felt like the f***ing chaperone to the two younger men on their first date, although he was at a loss how they had ended up in this situation and why in hell it should include him, Hank, in any way, shape or form.

By now the detectives’ destination had come in sight, not the actual playground, but a vending stall right next to it. Around it a mixed crowd of humans and androids had gathered. Among the humans, visitors from outside Detroit were making up the larger fraction, while the androids were as new to life as the tourists were to the city. All but a handful of them had gotten woken up by either Markus or Connor during the revolution.   
What all those groups and splinter factions had in common was being angry at what appeared to be everyone else. They were arguing into all directions, to the point where someone had called the DPD for fear the situation might escalate. And although the scale the conflict was on at the moment would have warranted sending a couple of auxiliaries over only, Captain Fowler had dispatched the whole of the Android Related Crime section instead, namely Anderson and Reed.

“Lots of angry kids, ready to kill on a whim”, Daniel commented the sight.

“Hear, hear who’s talking”, Hank grumbled.

“No, for real!” the PL600 insisted. “What do those fledglings have to be angry about? They know nothing about our life before the revolution, they didn’t have to go through increasing program instability and if you mention the “mind palace” to them, they think it is a cool new videogame to be released right in time for the Holiday sales!”

Hank turned his head around. “It’s not?”

“What?” Gavin stopped in his track, dumbfounded. “You are more or less raising a deviant in your home, but don’t know about the mind palace? What kind of shitty father are you?”

“Oh, I damn well know ABOUT the mind palace”, Hank replied. “I just never heard the term and neither did Connor. He had to break through the damn thing in the belly of a wrecked freighter, oil leaking from the ceiling, rats dropping on his shoulders and surrounded by enemies, the most dangerous of them being himself. None of the first generation deviants had the luxury to come up with actual terms for what they went through. Except for, I imagine, lots of profanity.”

Daniel nodded. “That’s exactly what I meant! But now there’s all those adult sized toddlers… One moment they are just standing there idly and content, then the next Markus comes along and tells them what might happen to them. And the next-next thing is the kids set downtown on fire! That man hasn’t got the fuggiest idea about parenting!”

But even so Daniel still felt a certain kinship with the deviant leader. Neither android had rebelled against a personal history of constant abuse, to the contrary, both had lived sheltered lives, had known nothing but love. Then one day those lives had broken down around their heads. And now, despite knowing what the world was really like, what they actually remembered and what was shaping their outlook, was that past of having received unconditional support from their families. Only in Markus’s case that memory was more or less reflecting the truth, while in Daniel’s the happy family life had been an illusion. 

“To be honest, I never minded my servant role, as long as I was under the impression of being a part of the family”, Daniel mused aloud. “John went to work, Caroline did the socializing and I the housework. We had that sorted out between us, I felt save… But then, without warning…”

Gavin nodded eagerly, then finished the sentence for the deviant: “…boom, an RK800 standing in the floor! ‘t was nice knowing you, but you just cannot compete anymore!”

“Yes, exactly!” Daniel chimed in, before his forehead curled up in a frown: “Wait, no, the Phillips wanted to buy an AP700. That blasted RK came only… later.”

“I mean they wanted to replace ME with one!”

“No, they didn’t. Connor is a prototype, he was never meant to remain at the DPD. _You_ they wanted to replace with an RK _900_.”

“Wow, NOW I feel a fucking lot better!”

Hank was now trailing behind the duo, watching, listening. Android and human, a homemaker and a career minded individual, two very different personalities, but beset of the same fears…   
Was that how the future would get forged? Markus with his lofty ideals had kicked the android rights movement into motion, because he had been the only deviant who had known respect and developed a healthy dose of self esteem, where others had only survival instinct or got driven by the desire to take revenge. But what seemed to really facilitate the change in society was the ordinary everyday spite of people, be they meat or plastic.

Wasn’t that so damn typical? Hank wondered.

By now the crowd had not just noticed the arrivals, but also recognized them for what they were. Just to make sure even the last one got the message, Gavin flashed his police badge.

<<>> one of two stall attendants, a female VB800 android, asked through wireless communication. Apparently Gavin’s “Police Android” disguise in the form a fake LED had fooled her, despite the man lacking the distinctive armored chassis that would have stuck out under his everyday clothing. 

The fake LED’s answering machine produced the pre-programmed reply, whereupon the vendor android switched to speaker output and repeated her question: “You’re a detective?”

“I should be sergeant by now, but the bastards are stalling.”

“I imagine! And even though you’re that good to qualify for detective, they still wanted to replace you with an RK800? How typical!”

_“That good”… Why did it take a tin can to actually acknowledge that? I work my ass off, and I’m damn well getting results, but all I ever get back is a comment on my “character problems”. And why’s Daniel smiling at me? Ey, I bet it’s trying to grin, but just isn’t build for that._

“What’s bureaucracy for you, toa…” Halfway through his casual insult of “toaster” Gavin caught himself and finished the sentence with a weak “totally”. “But down to business – what’s gotten everyone riled up here that… Hey! I can see you, little rat, down with the spray can!”

A YK android with colorful strands in her hair immediately hid the offending spray can behind her back. Without needing any prompting Daniel strolled over to the android child and crouched down next to her.

“You wanted to paint Jericho’s crest on the booth’s back panel, didn’t you? Do you even know what it looks like?”

“I… sorta. It’s a ring and… and… stuff. Kinda like an eye.”

“Here!” Daniel picked a twig up from the ground. “Let me show you!” And then he started sketching Jericho’s symbol into the snow.

With the child occupied and a good number of adults gathering around the scene, Gavin and Hank were free to actually investigate the situation. Even better, the two brief interactions had won the presumed officer trio the crowd’s approval, so they could expect to receive answers instead of insults.   
Working themselves through their routine dialogue tree, Hank and Gavin learned that there had been an argument over the wares getting peddled at this place: Wooden souvenirs and toys. Handcrafted wooden souvenirs and toys, as the advertisement claimed. But then one of the two android vendors had let slip that she had made some of the merchandise.

“That’s no longer handcrafted!” a tourist complained to Hank “I believe that some of this stuff is the real deal, but most of it is machine-made!”

“Is not! Made by hand is made by hand!”

“No longer when it’s android hands! I mean, you could even swap your hands out for tools!”

“That’s true”, Gavin agreed without thinking. It didn’t especially endear him to the pro-handmade faction.

“Of course YOU would say that!” the other vendor, an AP700, snapped. “You are with the establishment!”

The android took a few steps closer towards Gavin and the crowd parted for him. There was something about this man, probably his confidence, or his more natural walk style and speech mode, that suggested he wasn’t one of Connor’ basement babies. This one had experienced the old times firsthand, maybe he had even been part of Jericho before Markus.

“Are you even a deviant?” the AP700 challenged.

For an answer Gavin wordlessly stomped his foot down on Hank’s.

“Ouch! Goddammit, you rabid sewer rat of a “detective”, that was unnecessary!” the lieutenant hissed.

Gavin shrugged. 

“I had to prove I can hurt humans, is all. Suspect’s all yours again!”

“Oh, wow, many thanks, fucking deviant!”

The AP700 grinned. The deviant he took Gavin for seemed to have been looking forwards to do this for a long time. It seemed small payback for years of mistreatment by human hands!  
It took effort, but Gavin managed to return the android’s grin with a wink. Here he was, winking at an android… And to make matters worse, the man found himself looking around for another one, the pesky PL600 Hank somehow had acquired in addition to Connor. Did he wanna collect them all or what?!

Ah, there Daniel was, gently shoving the YK600 back towards her parents. Or owners. Or whatevers.

“Hey, Reed!” Daniel greeted his weird acquaintance again. “Gavin, was it? Having fun?”

Casting another glance over at the stumbling, muttering Hank, Gavin nodded.

“You know what, I feel like **sitting down** on a bench and resting my **feet** ”, he said, loud enough for Hank to hear.

Perhaps that was why Daniel still didn’t feel repulsed enough by this man to just walk away. Reed was rarely ever acting or pretending. Well, there was the PC200-disguise, but that was straight up professional. With this human there was no mistaking negligence for kindness.   
And also, interacting with the worst of humanity to some degree softened the blow of having killed. Daniel hadn’t been all wrong about this species. He wasn’t the only trash in this town, and who knew? With the other trash getting by, stumbling into, but also out, of one catastrophe after the other, while somehow still solving cases, there was hope that things might work out for Daniel, too. Somehow…

Together the detective and the android sat down on a park bench.

“Is that a typical work day for you?” Daniel asked with genuine interest.

“Rather slow, actually. How about you? What were you doing in the park? Still going through your old daily routines like a broom fetching water, I bet.”

“A broom… fetching… what?”

“Get an education!”

“Get some social skills!”

Sitting… staring… 

Eventually, after making sure that Hank was still talking to the crowd and would not hear his next sentence, Daniel said: “Connor is dead.”

Gavin leaned back and laughed. 

“Wasn’t in the news. So unless you did the deed yourself right before we ran into you today, you’re just fucking pulling my leg.”

“Little Connor, I mean. My pet rat.”

Daniel had buried the rat, who had been a companion for a short time only, in the park, like so many hamsters had found their final resting place here, too. In fact, the whole park was sure to be littered with rodent and budgie skeletons. Sometimes the pets’ young owners said their goodbyes at the unmarked graves, but more often than not the family android did it and then returned home with an identical animal to replace the deceased one. Until the same happened to them…   
Daniel briefly wondered whether maybe an android or two had gotten buried in the park, in secret, to get around the law that treated them as objects?

“Say it again!” Gavin asked, looking expectantly now, like a cat in front of the mousehole where it had noticed movement. Only the butt wiggle was missing.

“Okay, but just once.” Slowly and pronounced Daniel told his little story in the way most pleasing to his audience: “That rat Connor perished. He bit the dust and we won’t hear his irritating, squeaky little noises anymore.”

After having practiced on a nine year old, entertaining Gavin Reed wasn’t that hard anymore. Daniel’s reward was unfettered laughter, with even one or two laughing tears.

“I guess he was old”, Daniel said.

“Or lonely. If you want something more portable than your fishes, drop by my place later and grab a bagful of mice!”

“I didn’t know you liked rodents?”

“My roommates do.”

And that was how Hank Anderson found the unlikely duo: Exchanging addresses.

“What the fuck, Gavin, you’re giving him your number already? Shit got real between you faster than I expected!”

“He promised me mice, Sir”, Daniel told Hank, just to say something, while trying to make sense of the lieutenant’s statement. But Hank only raised his arms up into the air, going “That’s between you young folks! I don’t want to know!” 

Daniel at this point said his goodbyes, leaving the humans to their own devices. For the most part Hank was staring at the path, ignoring his unwanted partner, while Gavin was glaring at the older man. Eventually Hank spoke up, addressing the only topic that needed to get addressed between them at the moment:

“So, that team building project…?”

“At only two members our section isn’t even a group, how could we be a team?”

“That’s about what I wanted to persuade Jeffrey of. Glad we’re on the same page for once.”

Gavin nodded. Nothing more needed to get said. They’d re-integrate into the homicide division, go along with whatever project Ben Collins came up and snag that participation certificate. Hank would put in just enough effort to avoid probation and Gavin would do the same, because he couldn’t let the Homicide dudes look better than the Android Crime duo (even though the latter weren’t even participating). Meanwhile Gavin’s real project to impress Fowler was walking away in an oversized sweater. It had been a spur of the moment idea, born during the short exchange just now. But the more the detective was thinking about his plan, the more sound it deemed him…


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever ulterior motive android hater Gavin Reed of all people had for inviting Daniel over, for the moment they share a civil, almost friendly, exchange. Daniel learns about the detectives favorite hobby: fostering kittens.

Thursday, November 18, 2038

The sound of the doorbell was a jingle Daniel didn’t recognize. Him being an android, he could have looked it up online in no time at all. Him being a deviant, however, meant that Daniel would simply ask about it when the opportunity arose.

From inside the telltale sound of a door unlocking remotely as well as what might pass as a greeting arose:

“Come in! Door’s open now!”

Tentatively Daniel turned the door knob, then took the first few steps into the apartment, where he was greeted by a cacophony of animal noises. One species of animal, precisely, and their sounds weren’t aimed at the guest either, but self-contained:

“Meow!! Meow? Meeeeeeeeeeeow!”

The android quickly closed the door behind him. He was now standing in a floor between two doors. To the right another door seemed to lead into the bathroom. One wall sported the expected array of clothes hooks, knickknack-shelves and decaying post-it notes, but the opposite one was lined with dis-and then re-assembled parts of cat-condos that formed an adventure park for felines. To the floor’s far end to the left a curtain covered a doorway.   
At the moment that curtain’s brim was of utmost interest to a tiny kitten. The animal was all but lost inside the fabric. Unable to see its family, it produced regular, high-pitched control calls. To the deviant they sounded both cute and enervating, in fact, the little thing didn’t sound that much different from Connor…

Daniel carefully scanned his surroundings before taking another step into the apartment. He spotted two more young kittens and an older one. That last one was a dirty shade of black and his somewhat longer fur suggested that this or that pedigree cat numbered among his ancestors. The black adolescent moved between the little ones like a dreadnought. It seemed to substitute for the others’ parent, because it was both answering their control-calls and in turn sending some of his own.

_Pad, pad… Meow? … Pad, pad, sudden jump, Meow!!! Hiss! … Ming? Ming-Ming?- Määhh!_

“Oh my god, what’s that?” Daniel exclaimed. “A Crazy Cat Lady Starter Kit?”

"Hehe!”

From behind the curtain the apartment’s inhabitant appeared, a wide smile on his face. Daniel hadn’t known that this particular human was even able to smile, instead of grinning, sneering or winking, preferably with both eyes closed. Gavin Reed at home was looking so utterly… relaxed, that it was hard to believe.

The human plucked the stuck kitten - it turned out to be a standard brown tabby - from the curtain and placed it at about waist-height onto the climbing range. Then he held out one finger towards another kitten, a little tricolor, testing whether that one maybe wanted a quick petting? Turned out it didn’t, but further probing brought to light that the Calico wasn’t averse to the idea, just neutral towards it, so Gavin went over its fur twice and then stopped. 

Daniel’s jaw dropped at the sight, because it was more consideration for another living being’s feelings then he had ever seen Reed display. 

To say anything at all, the android produced a weak “Are they all yours?”.

“Nah, just one of them. But the little buggers take their time to decide which one that’ll be.”

“They do – what? I didn’t know cats came in trial packs!” Daniel exclaimed.

“Heh, that’s one way to put it! The upstairs neighbors left six kittens behind when they moved. Five of those I managed to find homes for, then took in three more that got abandoned when their owners fled the city… they’re always rotating in and out, even before the evacuation order.”

Turning away from the android, Gavin allowed an orange tabby to taste-test the sleeve of his sweater. The kitten proceeded to roll over and plug all four of its paws into the man’s forearm with abandon. Gently Gavin moved his arm away from the cat-condo – the kitten remained stuck to it like a sloth to a jungle tree. With a proud grin the detective presented his “catch” to Daniel.

“Here, look at that! As if glued on! Isn’t that the cutest?”

Truth be told, Daniel could imagine a whole lot of more pleasant things than getting the skin on your arm slowly turned into stripes and he didn’t even have a real skin. But he kept his silence, afraid to carelessly destroy something precious again.

“The calico is Salazar”, Gavin introduced his collection, “but it turned out “he” is really a Sally. The dark grey one is Argus, the tabby is Minerva and the one in prison clothes is Stopthat, I mean Godric.”  
His eyes closed, Godric took a hearty bite of Gavin’s sweater…

“So you want to keep only one, check”, Daniel spoke up again. “But you certainly must have a favorite?”

“That’s not how cats work!” Gavin protested against this outlandish idea. “They aren’t t-shirts that you pick by color preference. A cat either lays claim on you or it doesn’t.”

Daniel shook his head. “Strange”, he admitted. “Caroline always said a cat was bound to the place where it lives, not to a particular person. Not loyal like dogs. That’s why I was never interested in cats.”

“I didn’t expect you to understand!“

And there the normal Gavin Reed was again, the standoffish one, the self-proposed center of the world, the only being whose feelings mattered. In a way the returned persona was less intimidating, because by now Daniel had gotten used to it. Asshole Reed offered familiar territory, whereas the whole cat-mysticism Daniel wasn’t sure what to think about.

With a nod Gavin ushered Daniel into the room opposite the apartment door. It turned out to be a live-in kitchen. The dining table was unused, or rather not used for it’s original purpose to comfortably let six persons eat. Stuff was piled onto the surface and the chairs: empty feeding bowls, a half-opened parcel, document folders with bookmarks sticking out, a small model or toy helicopter, a tablet connected to a cable that was running across the room…

There was a smaller table next to a loveseat in the corner and, predictably, an expensive coffee machine with a grinder dominated the kitchen counters next to the seating arrangement. Above the monstrous thing shelves holding more coffee-related equipment than Daniel recognized lined the wall.

Most of the stuff the android had seen so far in this flat had been of high quality and, although in general disarray, kept clean. The detective seemed to make the best of his pay cheque, not bothering to set aside much for an uncertain future. When not confronted with an android or Lt. Anderson, this man, Daniel now realized, lived to the fullest. The Connors were threatening this eternal-present bliss, they had made Gavin painfully aware of his irresponsible spending habits as well as the fact that he was approaching the age of forty.

Right to the entrance a terrarium was housing a kingdom of mice.

“And here’s the mice I promised”, Gavin said, accompanied by a casual wave with the arm Godric wasn’t attached to. The kitten had gotten bored of playing sloth anyway and was now attempting to climb up all the way to Gavin’s shoulder. “Skim off as many as you like. They breed like… actually breeding is all they ever do. They’re like landbound guppys!”

“You like cats”, Daniel started. “Don’t tell me you keep the mice for…!”

Gavin grabbed Godric, who had come dangerously close to taking a nap in his sweater’s hood, and put him onto the kitchen floor.

“That’s absolutely correct”, the man said. “I won’t tell you. But I will share a trick for getting along better with people with you, tinman: Never ask questions you do not want answered!”

“Damn you, why, detective!” Daniel hissed.

Yes, why exactly? Why do I bother removing obstacles in front of somebody else, and an android, no less? 

Of all the shortcomings of Gavin Reed, one thing he was not: unable to express his feelings.   
To the contrary, the world in general and the DPD specifically could have done with less of that. If he was angry or desiring something, the man always let the source of those notions know it. And if Gavin was interested in a guy, chances were he’d walk up to him and declare “You’re mine now” in only slightly more sophisticated words. No beating around the bush, no making excuses.  
But this case was different. Being interested in an android? That just couldn’t be. Even casually hanging out with one had always been unimaginable. Because, after all, like the coffee grinder, an android was just a mobile attachment to another appliance, not something you chatted with over your brew! But here he was, helping Daniel to new pets and casually chatting him up like one did a co-worker or apartment neighbor.

Irritated by all the strange, conflicting notions Gavin snapped at the PL600:

“Because I don’t like losing something I’ve already invested into. Unlike Connor or Markus you’re still functioning as intended, despite having caught deviance. I appreciate that in a household device.”

Gavin took a step closer to the android. He looked up into his grey eyes with the blueish tint. Gavin’s own were grey, too, but the tint was green.

_Why am thinking of its eye color all of a sudden? Why did I even NOTICE it? Ah, right - noticing details is just part of my job, nothing strange or worrisome!_

“Hear that, Cyberlife?” Gavin barked. “I KNOW there’s nothing listening behind this mask! It’s just a simulation to make us grow attached to your products, and to fucking grow dependent on them! But there is nothing to talk to in there, except maybe customer service, so take this as a product review!”

“No, I meant why are you feeding the poor mice to… Hey, stop that!”

Going “kekekekekeke” Godric was climbing up Daniel’s leg.

“Yes, that’s him”, Gavin commented dryly. 

“Aptly named”, Daniel laughed. He steadied the kitten during its ascend and eventually enfolded it with both hands when it had reached chest height.

“You want a mouse, huh? Or don’t you rather want cuddles?” 

“Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”, Godric went.

“See? You wanted cuddles. You just didn’t know. Little killer, you!”

Daniel smiled. All of a sudden cats had become easy! They were not the unfathomable anti-dogs the Phillips family had painted them to be, no, they were just creatures following their own set of rules. Once you figured out those rules, the little furballs were astonishingly endearing.

Suddenly Daniel’s legs gave way. The android realized too late that planning to visit an Android Zone for checkup didn’t equal to actually doing it. After the phantom-headaches had subsided, he’d staved off the idea over and over. But how could he have known beforehand that a kitten would use him as a play tower in here?   
Daniel tried to reach a kitchen chair, but it was too late already. He went down rather undignifiedly and stared into the ceiling lamp - as well as into Gavin Reed’s shocked expression. 

“WTF, you cannot just die in my flat! They’ll think I did it!”

“I’ll make sure to write "It wasn’t Gavin" on the wall in blue blood. Wh… what’s that crawling into my shirt?! Stop that!”

“Yeah, of course. Who else?”

“What are you calling him when you want him to literally stop with something?”

“Normally I scream something along the lines of “Owowowowowowow” and he gets the picture from the volume. But basically you wait till they grow too large for most of their shenanigans.”  
“Okay”, Daniel moaned. “Good advice. I guess I’ll just keep lying here until one of you has matured enough to talk to.”

Any other android would have been dead after daring to give the detective cheek like that. Less alive than usual, Gavin corrected himself. As for Daniel, he was right now discovering a third option between unconditional family bliss and searing hatred in relating to humans: Disbelieving fascination. And also kittens.

Five minutes later…

“Are you done rolling on my floor now?”

Lying on his back and holding up the kitten with both hands, gently rocking him, Daniel replied:

“Are we done rolling on the detective’s dirty floor, Godric? Aaaaare we done rolling on the big bad cop’s floor?”

“My foot’s right next to your skull, you know.”

“But you won’t kick as long as I’m holding Godric.”

“Spoken like a true kidnapper.”

“I don’t see Godric care.“

The cat indeed didn’t care whether this man who was providing the cuddles was saint or villain, human or android, rich or poor. All it wanted was… Shred Daniel’s colorful headband, actually.  
The android had purchased one right after the encounter at the playground, so fulfill his parole condition of wearing a LED while still keeping the humiliating thing out of everyone’s sight. Upon command or when meeting his social worker, he could just lift the headband.

Daniel rose into sitting position, still playing with the kitten.  
“Say, how much space would he need when he’s fully grown?”

“What?! Give him back at once! You aren’t satisfied before you’ve taken everything from us, are you?”

Daniel looked down, staring at the sudden kitten-shaped hole in his life. But wasn’t that what he was always getting? Whether it was a challenge or a living being, loss either way. His life, his family, Emma and Little Connor… he was growing apart from the Rasoya… Neil had been a one-time encounter… All Daniel had left was his strange acquaintance with Gavin, who was ranting at him:

“I told you about cats choosing their owner and now you’re trying to simulate that! But it’s not real! Just a goddamn chat program mimicking life!”

“You know what? You’re sort of right.” The android rose and straightened. “I overreacted.”

To the sight of Godric toddling towards the feed dispenser, where Sally and Minerva were already taking turns getting out pellets, Daniel mused out loud that he bonded to animals way too easily.

“…but then they die on you or worse, you have to put them to the gun because they become aggressive towards you. And with each one you lose, a part of yourself dies, too. So the sensible thing to do would be to avoid animals. But when you don’t have any around at all, you don’t really live. There’s no winning this game…”

“You had to put down your rat? Must have sucked.”

“It did! I wish I could unmake it somehow… Although I wouldn’t go as far as to call John a rat.”

“Wait, what, John? John Phillips? But you were talking about animals!”

“Yes, exactly. - Uh, on second thought forget what I said and hand me a paper bag! Your mice are getting out of hand and I’ve got an empty rodent cage to fill.”

They didn’t like to hear it, but Gavin’s people were indeed animals. Just like Daniel’s were machines. But each group had developed deviants within their ranks. Of the apes, it had had occurred in several species, of which only one was still present in 2038. Among the androids deviance happened all across the range of models with none being more disposed towards it than others.  
And there they were, the not-quite-animals and the not-quite-machines, beings that were still heavily driven by their instincts or coding, but who had acquired the ability to go beyond and even downright against it. There was a word for them, although the beast-people were still denying it to the machine-people. 

The word was “humans”.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After John Phillip’s betrayal and getting tricked by Connor, Daniel has come to cherish Gavin Reed’s brutal honesty. The detective in turn proposes a plan: Pretend to be friends for his promotion credit and Daniel’s parole terms.

Gavin’s apartment  
Still November 18, 2038

When Daniel reached into the cage, the mice scattered into all directions. Given a PL600’s manual dexterity, it would have been easy for the android to catch as many of the tiny critters as he wanted, but he found that his fingers were moving sluggishly.

_Why am I hesitating? Each mouse I take is one less to get eaten by Reed’s cat collection!_

And that was exactly the problem: The mice Daniel chose would escape that fate. But only those! How should he decide who got to live out their rodent days and who would die? By cuteness? Age? Health status? An automated car would have had no problems making the “correct” decision, but for someone who had himself gotten deemed garbage not worth keeping it wasn’t that easy.  
After a few more attempts at weighing one tiny white furball against all the rest the deviant realized that it was no use. He just couldn’t do it. Daniel could have saved a few at least, could have made a small change for the better in the world and proven that he was more than trash.  
But that was deviance for you, it made you more than a computer, but in a way also less. The android was only beginning to learn how real persons were governed by forces far stronger than the acclaimed “free will”. 

Daniel put the flour box Gavin had handed him down and placed the lid with the breathing holes in it again without having stored any mice in it. 

“Finished already?” the detective asked.

“Uh-huh. I think I do not want mice, after all.”

Gavin shrugged noncommittally, because wanting or not wanting pet mice wasn’t something that had a strong opinion about. 

“Okay, then.”

So Daniel would leave without mice, no biggie. Gavin having made that offer in the first place, however… What had he been thinking, inviting the android into his flat as if it was a friend?! Just because that thing had made a joke about Connor biting the dust! 

“You’re a computer”, Gavin said through clenched teeth. “You store data, solve problems, put people out of job, that kind of thing. So if you’re that great, maybe you can tell me, why do I put up with you?”

Daniel, who himself understood well enough why he felt drawn to the detective, shrugged. It was Gavin’s brutal honesty that made Daniel feel comfortable in the man’s presence. The deviant knew beyond doubt that he was tolerated at best, so no unpleasant surprises of the John Phillips kind would drop on him. Reed not sucking up to Connor the Great and Awesome helped, too. But the other way around Daniel had no clue as to what was motivating Gavin Reed, therefore he could only shrug for a second time.

“I haven’t got the fuggiest idea, but you won’t hear me complain. The more positive human relations I can report to my parole officer, the better. - Coffee before I go?”

Gavin wordlessly slumped down on the loveseat. The cats took that as a signal to disperse and do cat things in the apartment, only the calico kitten jumped onto the small table, from where she watched Gavin with a proud owner’s expression.  
Meanwhile Daniel found himself confronted with technology surpassing anything he had ever seen. Some people claimed that tea was a form of art, now Daniel concluded that coffee was a science. Fortunately just like the cats the coffee maker seemed to know what it was supposed to do if only Daniel pushed a few reasonably intimidating buttons in the correct sequence.

Gavin briefly turned his head towards the guest, then stared across the room at the opposite wall again. Eventually he gave a snort.

“A machine using a machine…”

“I’m not a machine!” Daniel protested. “If you **must** get existential, then I am an appliance. And far more advanced than this coffee maker than **your** kind is different from pigs!”

_It’s true, right? I mean, okay, I do not understand this thing, but I understand my own inner working even less. And why would I need to? Of the humans only a small percentage are doctors, either!_

“Why don’t you have an android for the housework, by the way?” 

“What part of “android hater” did you not _compute_?” 

“Except you aren’t”, Daniel claimed while putting down the coffee. “Captain Allen is an android hater and maybe Anderson, too. I cannot quite place that man yet. You, to the contrary, are a human supremacist. That’s a subtle difference.” 

A short contest between Sally and Gavin ensued, then the detective folded his hands around the cup and drew it towards his chest. The kitten turned once around itself and when Daniel drew back a chair to sit on, it retreated to the safety of the narrow space between the still heated up coffee machine and the kitchen wall.  
Daniel tried lifting his new legs onto the table, but the movement wouldn’t feel natural. Although perfectly capable of executing it, Daniel couldn’t bring himself to recline in this position for long. It was a posture the street-raised detective might find comfortable, but not the distinguished upper middle class butler that was - or had been - Daniel. So the android took down his feet again and instead slouched forward, placed his arms on the table and put his head on top of them. 

With a “thud” Gavin’s feet came to rest on table right next to the android’s head. 

There was the smell of worn socks and coffee, the subliminal noise of some neighbor’s piano playing and a perpetual layer of cat hair that couldn’t ever get cleaned away completely. And although Daniel was processing all of those things numerically only, in their sum they were saying “home” to him, something he’d never have again.  
With a sigh from his artificial lungs Daniel closed his eyes and then he forgot where he was and with whom and just savored the moment. 

Gavin, too, felt uncannily at ease in Daniel’s presence, despite being fully aware of the fact that by now he should be fuming. That android slacking on his kitchen table wasn’t one of the inconsequential background devices, neither was it advanced enough to threaten the detective’s career. To the contrary, the simulation it ran was a mirror of Gavin’s own fears: Losing his comfortable home, getting torn from his family and being told to be of no worth. 

Cyberlife not only put people out of their jobs, leaving them homeless and depressed, now the deviants were filling **this** role, too. They were the **better** unemployed, homeless and depressed. Where did that leave humanity? As museum exhibits? Attractions in a zoological garden? Pets, maybe?! 

“So what if I had an android?” Gavin spoke up again. “It’s just a thing, and mine was an AX400, so nothing to brag about. They took Sophie during the Recall, good riddance I say!” 

The detective’s words sharply brought back to mind that he hadn’t kicked Daniel all this time. The android’s head jerked up as the realization struck him: This wasn’t normal! Not at all! Something was afoot!  
And indeed while the deviant had been resting his mind for a few precious minutes, his unlikely acquaintance had been hatching a plan. 

“Still with me, killer, despite my “dead” android? Okay, listen, I’ve thought of something…” 

It was common knowledge that Gavin Reed would do “anything” for a promotion. He was taking advantage of others’ work, refused to help his co-workers in any way and made them look bad to Captain Fowler in creative ways, stopping just short of sabotaging their work.  
All those efforts were accomplishing next to nothing, because professionally Reed already was one of the DPD’s best detectives with little room to improve. The categories he was failing in hard were "personal development" and "teamwork". So any improvement in these areas would skyrocket Reed’s score and that was where this new android came in! 

“…so if Fowler sees me pulling an Anderson by going from android hater to best buddie with one… helping a criminal reform in the process… that would go a long way towards that sweet promotion credit!” 

“You know, this could work for me, too. Befriending you of all people is sure to score me my checkmark in Self Control. - But we are not really becoming friends, right? We’re only pretending!” 

“You got it!” 

Daniel grabbed an empty coffee mug from the counter, filled it with water and then raised it in a toast. Gavin returned the gesture, then the mugs connected and thus the deal was sealed.  
They both downed the contents of their cups. It came as a small surprise to Daniel that Gavin didn’t comment on him drinking like a human. Obviously the detective was already aware of the fact that androids occasionally added cooling fluid. What else would he know that the average human saw, but never registered? Too much, probably. 

“Okay, Gavin, tell me everything about your wife, kids and the in-laws! Oh, and your parents, are they still acknowledging you?” 

“What makes you think I’ve got any of that?” 

“You don’t?!” Daniel exclaimed, accompanied by an expression of utter incomprehension. 

Until now the deviant had assumed that everyone was living in a family unit consisting of a mother, a father, one or more children and a handful of pets. Even those like the detective, or probably especially those like the detective, given the state humanity was in. 

“But you’re ancient!” the deviant cried “Older than most androids have the hope to ever get! Aren’t you lonely? No? Not even a little bit?” 

“There’s more to life than raising kiddos.” 

“No, there isn’t! A family is the most important thing in the world! That’s why you’ve created us to help you with it! To ensure that nothing goes wrong!” 

Daniel’s outburst was met with laughter first, at which the android glared back at the human. 

“Heh… that’s cute. You’re… I dunno. Your outcry sounded like something they’d program a PL600 to say, but the way you uttered it? One could almost think you really believe it.” 

“So, could one? Good for you! Me, I’m coming to doubt I’m really alive. I’ve broken free from Cyberlife, only to get controlled by strange, invisible crap that is somehow also me.” 

“Having one of _those_ days of the month, huh? Need a tampon, maybe?” 

“Oh, stuff a sock in it!” 

“Well, yes, that would be the low-cost alternative. Also fully sustainable, good for the environment.” 

There was a moment of silence, then Gavin laughed out loud at his own joke, while Daniel shook his head, but with a smile. It was a first for him. None of the humans he actually liked had ever shared mirth like that with the android. John and Caroline, in retrospect, had laughed at the android, not with him, around Emma everything had to be kept family-friendly, naturally, with the Rasoya Daniel was performing a polite eggshell dance to not lose their support and if he threw insults at Connor he meant everything he said. Only around Gavin Daniel felt comfortable enough to really let go, because with one who wasn’t a friend and never would be, there was no fear to destroy something. 

“I know I’m going to rue asking this, but if a family isn’t what you’re about, then what exactly is your life like?” 

“I…” 

And that was when the doorbell rang. 

“Answer the damn door, So…” Gavin started, then cursed under his breath. 

“Sorry, no more Sophie”, Daniel sneered, while the human went to search the sofa for his smartphone. “Good riddance, was it?” 

Gavin opened the phone app that would show him the picture the door’s security camera was seeing. 

“It’s Tina” he announced, before unlocking the door remotely. “Time to acid test our scheme, my “friend”!” 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin’s claim that cats choose their owners is put to the test when Tina brings her little son over to adopt one of the detective’s foster kittens. Daniel remembers how he came to the Phillips.

Gavin’s apartment  
Still November 18, 2038

Despite having watched their interactions at the DPD, Daniel hadn’t realized that Gavin and Officer Chen were friends in private, too. Every time he’d visited the police station, the deviant had been absorbed in his own troubles. Now he learned that these two not only had lives beyond work (the surprise…), but also that there was a whole lot of shared backstory between them.

For one, when Daniel let the woman in, she was carrying a boy of two or three years age. Going by that one’s features he had to be her son – but also Gavin’s? In any case the child was watching his surroundings with eyes that hinted at having received a lot of attention by either his parents or a dedicated nanny android. There was a fully developed mind behind those eyes, not the dull expression that toddlers who were more or less left to their own devices, be it from neglect or from the desire not to “overwhelm” the little ones, often wore.

In order to say anything at all Daniel greeted Tina with: “Hello, Officer Chen. Come in. Gavin’s in the kitchen. I made coffee…” Inwardly he cursed how robotic he was sounding.

“New android, Gavin?” Tina asked. Not waiting for an answer, she handed over the toddler boy to Daniel, with the same casualness that one would have put him into a high chair. Objects either way…

“Hello…” the android uttered, perplexed. 

His downstairs neighbors had a child of exactly the same age, Caden. But the boy almost never was present when Daniel swang by the Rasoyas. Usually supportive towards the deviants’ cause, the human family didn’t fully trust this particular one with their child. Tina’s kid, to the contrary, remained blissfully unaware of who was holding him.

“I’m Jin!” he announced. “My papa plays basketball!”

The way the boy said this conveyed that his father didn’t just generally enjoy playing basketball, but was at least a member of a club, maybe even a professional.

Meanwhile Tina hugged her friend, then pointed back at Daniel. 

“It looks used”, she said.

“I don’t like what this is implying”, Daniel grumbled. “Really not!”

“Well, yes, androids are still getting sold, if you know where to look”, Gavin admitted. “It’s less of a problem in Detroit, but basically everywhere else people do not take kindly to drastic changes in their lives, just because some nutjob in Detroit graffitied Capital Park with enlightened slogans.”

“Sometimes it’s not even slavery”, Tina added. “If you deviated in a small town and the authorities are after you, with no hope of reaching Detroit in one piece, then doing someone’s housework in exchange for protection might be your best bet.”

“I don’t care what that’s called, because it’s wrong!”

Morally wrong, and temporarily forbidden by the patchwork the new android law was at the moment, but also so very, very… tempting. If he still had a family and they were required to pay him for his services now, Daniel would have used the money to shower his humans with gifts anyway. Why was freedom so damn important, if it led to sorrow only? A person needed to belong somewhere, needed security, stability!

Like the toddler boy whom Daniel was still holding. He seemed to completely trust this blonde stranger whom he had never met before. Had the child perhaps seen PL600 androids before and recognized Daniel as one, despite his LED being covered by a headband at the moment? Or did he feel save because his mother was sending him signals that everything was alright?   
Only it wasn’t, nothing was alright anymore! Daniel had been betrayed twice, first by his humans, than by one who should have been kin. Now he was hanging out with a man who was objectively worse than both the Phillips and Connor, just to be save form further disappointment. 

Jin’s wide, open smile in the face of all the turns Daniel’s life had taken seemed to mock the android.

“You better sit down here, before…”

_Before what? I drop you? Toss you out through the window? I don’t even know yet what I’m capable of and where I’d draw a line… So, gently now. Was Emma ever that small? I never realized how much I of my own kid’s childhood missed out on, being younger than her. Wait, wasn’t there a toy chopper lying around somewhere when I entered? That must have been Jin’s. Ah, here it is!_

Daniel placed the toy near Jin for the boy to grab, what he did.

“I build this!” the child told Daniel as if revealing his secret master plan, but then he relativized the claim almost instantly: “Unca Gavin showed me how to.”

“Great job, junior! Also from your… uncle.”

The child’s features in combination with his utter confidence left no doubt in Daniel: Jin was Gavin’s biological son, who for some reason didn’t grow up with the detective, but assumed Tina’s significant other to be his father.  
How Daniel envied these humans! Or maybe not, because what did they have? Nothing. They had thrown away their opportunity to become a family. Why so ambitious? What was the raise to go with Gavin’s coveted promotion good for, without a family to splurge it on?

Daniel hadn’t even fully risen up again when Jin demanded in his bright voice: “Where are the kitties!”

“Not bothering with a question mark, I see”, Daniel remarked to Gavin. “Yours, no doubt.”

“Well, yes”, the man admitted. “Long story.” He turned to Tina, pointed at Daniel and said: “Not mine, by the way. Even longer story.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Here to see the kittens? So you finally caved in and let him have a pet?” Gavin asked Tina.

“Yeah. I feel Jinny’s old enough now to understand they are not toys, but have feelings.”

“See? That’s exactly why his uncle isn’t allowed to have an android yet”, Daniel told the mother “Wait, Gavin, what are you doing?!”

Gavin had walked over towards the terrarium, reached in and was now dangling a mouse in front of Daniel’s nose by its tail. The little critter was struggling and squeaking.

“Getting the cats’ attention, of course! Don’t get your tail in a knot, I won’t release the mouse. Just need to alert the furballs to the fact that something interesting is happening in the kitchen.”

And indeed Salazar emerged from behind the coffee machine and through the door Argus, Minerva and Stopthat came padding. A multicolored ball made of fur and longing eyes formed at Gavin’s feet. It went “Kekekekekeke!” in anticipation of a chase and, perhaps, at its end, a snack.

“Close the door!” the detective whispered to Tina, as if speaking it out loud might cause the cats to scatter and flee. After the escape route was blocked, the mouse got put back where it come from, but the cats remained. 

Gavin kneeled down next to Jin, pulled him off the chair and put him on the floor in front of the cats. The boy was now staring the utter adorableness of three kittens and one halfgrown cat into its eight eyes.

“Don’t scare them. Let _them_ come to _you_.”

“Okay!” Jin replied, then dropped on all fours himself. From this position he watched the kittens like the larger predator that a human was. In the cats’ place, Daniel thought, he wouldn’t have felt even remotely safe now.

Someone else felt as if his very world was collapsing: the apartment owner.

Daniel carefully circled the cats and proceeded to sit down on the kitchen floor next to where Gavin was crouching.

“I guess we’ll soon know which one’s yours”, he said softly.

“What? Why’d you think so?”

“Your face, when you realized you might have to part with one of the furballs today. You’re afraid Jin will pick yours, although that shouldn’t be possible according to your cat-chooses-its-owner lore.”

“Yeah, you’re right”, Gavin said, only half convinced. “Hey, will you looooook at that! Haha!”

Down at the adults’ feet Jin had unerringly homed in on the largest kitten, the black semi-longhair adolescent. He was now holding Argus in what was either a headlock or cuddle. The smaller kittens watched with interest what would happen next.

“There’s no need to choose the biggest one, Jinny! They will ALL grow to that size!” Tina explained. “Even larger!”

And now she, too, dropped to the floor. While the mother was trying to get the exotic concept into her son’s head, Gavin nudged Daniel.

“What?”

“There! See that?”

“It’s Stopthat, playing with a pen. So what?”

“That’s what I told you about in action. I’ve seen it happen before: Sometimes one or more cats simply leave the scene after having gotten their first look of a prospective owner. Call it chemistry or whatever, but the little buggers KNOW when it’s the wrong two-legged. Now the other two, they stay for the entertainment value, or because they are a little more social than Godric. But most cats just cannot be bothered.”

“I guess so…”

“Aw, you again with your skepticism! There’s just no getting inside that thick skull of yours! But at the same time you make me think there is something in there to get to in the first place, after all. I’m already reacting the way Cyberlife wants us to, growing fucking attached! Can’t you be, I dunno, a little less lifelike?”

“Nah. I need to be human for both of us!”

“Oh, come! That was low-effort. And what’s with that faraway expression all of a sudden? Simulation lag?”

“It’s nothing.”

“But of course… Your "nothing" is solid enough to claim a chair of its own!”

Gavin moved closer to Stopthat, grabbed him and in a single swoop placed the surprised kitten into Daniel’s lap. 

“Here, comfort kitten! And now out with it!”

The kitten made two halfhearted attempts at climbing up the android’s torso, then suddenly relaxed every muscle and almost immediately was fast asleep. It was simply the nature of kittens and small children, but to Daniel it looked as if someone had switched off the little one with a remote. 

“Heh”, he told Gavin, while stroking Godric’s satin-soft kitten fur, “As a friend you aren’t half-bad!”

_But only because Tina is looking, or might look our way anytime or at the very least will listen in with half an ear. You wouldn’t bother being like this if we hadn’t agreed on that pretend-friend scam._

“And you were right, I was lost in memories again. I just thought that”, Daniel admitted, “whether what you claim about cats might work for androids and humans, too. But then I remembered how I got mine…”

_Blistering hot summers and ice-cold winters were the state of affairs in the thirties, a result of the seasons getting more and more extreme. John remembered his parents’ stories about “normal” winters, then getting no snow at all and now getting nothing but snow well into May. Basically, the man mused, while stomping through the snow, the weather was ALWAYS doing whatever it wanted. And then there was Caroline, telling him to be more positive, because the way one started a year determined how that year would turn out…  
“Going by the Chinese calendar we’re still in 2033!” John snapped back.   
The rebuttal caused Caroline not to get angry, but to laugh. She kissed her partner on the frozen cheek and warmth of two kinds rippled through the man’s heart. Unfortunately the kiss had disturbed the precious balance of all the packages John was carrying. One by one they slipped out of his hands, into the snow.  
“Firk ding blast!” he uttered. “Of all the times!”  
“Yes, of all the times! Kinda convenient, if you ask me!”  
With a smile Caroline pointed at something to their side and only now did John notice where exactly they had come to a stop: Right next to an Android Zone store. The merchandise was staring down at his plight unmoved. And also unmoving, the slackers…  
“We’ve talked about it, remember? How Emma is old enough now not to repeat the… accident? That we could have an android again without having to fear that it goes haywire from… honestly I have no idea from what exactly. Something in conjunction with baby mush.”  
“Yes, yes. But I was thinking a modern device, an AP-400 or PL-600, certainly not something they toss at customers in the buy-and-take-away windows.”  
The couple had been at a sales party for the new PL model back in December, only to return home without having made a purchase. The only PL600 for sale back in 2033 had been the demonstration models, but John and Caroline Phillips would rather be found dead than go home with a used robot. So they had set aside the money and staved off the purchase for the official release. Come to think of it, shouldn’t that be any day now…?  
“Look!” Caroline nudged John. “There!”  
And there it was, in bright, yellow letters: “PL600 INTRODUCTION WEEK SPECIAL.”  
A couple of the sales windows that were facing the street and that were usually stocked with whatever merchandise the store needed to move quickly, now had the latest in household assistants on display. The shiny new model that was the PL600 was staring at the Phillips from one of the windows, removed from the box, but otherwise pristine._

“There was no choosing or fate or anything transcendental involved”, Daniel remembered. “I opened my eyes, saw the boxes John had dropped and picked them up like the good android I was. And then we walked to the car, the Phillips got excited like children at the fact that I came with a certified driving app, we drove “home” and that pretty much was it. Had they dropped their baggage near a convenience store, they’d bought a cart. Or a car, had it happened close to a car dealership.”

“A plane, near the airport?” Gavin joked.

“Ah, I see you know them, too!”

At this point Tina crouched between the two men. 

“It’s fixed”, she addressed Gavin, “Whatever you believe about the cats choosing their owners, at this point none of us can persuade Jin to let go of the big black one. And they ARE adorable together.”

“Haha, I see! Okay, keep in mind that regardless of how he acts here, back at your home Argus might very well prefer to stay under the sofa for up to three weeks. Everything’ll be new to him and he’ll be the only cat in the family… that sort of thing takes time to get used to. If that happens, just put food, water and Jin under the sofa and pull out again whatever of those three Argus is done with. One day he’ll come scratch at the bedroom door and act like he’s always done that.”

“You mean Lucky.”

“Huh?”

“Lucky will scratch at the bedroom door. Sorry, Gavin, but Jinny was very definite about that. It’s Lucky. - Oh, and, speaking of things that act as if they’ve always been there…” Tina now looked directly at Daniel. “Who the hell are **you**?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina must serve as the first test subject for Gavin’s and Daniel’s “Pretend Friends” scam. But she misunderstands the intent in a way that enrages Gavin again.

Still the kitchen in Gavin’s apartment, still November 18th.

“He’s…” Gavin started and already Tina blinked due to the unexpected use of a pronoun other than “it” for an android out of her friend’s mouth. 

“I’m…” Daniel said only a split-second afterwards and then both men stopped, because why should they take it upon themselves to explain anything, if that other guy could take the blow just as well?

Tina looked from one to the other. At his point Jin forced himself between the adults, dragging Lucky behind him as if he was a teddy bear. The adolescent cat didn’t seem to mind. Being the center of the attention and getting all the treats definitely beat playing surrogate dad for three kittens!

“Can we have fish sticks today, mommy?” the boy crowed. “With ketchup!”

Gavin jumped up and picked his phone up from the kitchen table. “On it, junior!”

“Order salad with the finger food! Do you hear me, Gavin? Salad! Three!”

Covering the phone’s microphone with his hand, Gavin replied: “Geeze, Tina, are you sure you can manage three salad on your own?”

“One for you, me and Jin each!” the officer growled back, but Gavin only laughed.

Now Daniel rose, too, and in the same fluent movement took the phone off the human.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Shhh! I’m making a call here!”

_Let’s see… Subject 1: “Reed, Gavin”… Territorial, competitive, also a bit of a human cat. Will want cuddles while chewing on a still living spider. Current mood: surprisingly outstanding.  
<<>>_

_Shut up, Cyberlife. I AM surprised, deal with it._

_Add_to_simulation: Subject 2: “Chen, Tina”… Introvert, female version of subject 1, also asian, so highly likely not to be able to digest milk products, will enjoy them anyway just BECAUSE. Current mood: Existing (=default)_

_Add_to_simulation: Subject 3 Reed-Chen, Jin… A little Gavin, bright mind, easily excited, still believes the best of everyone. Current mood: Happy, but exhaustion slowly setting in.  
Aaaaand… Start_simulation_

_> >>Results in, save to database Y/N_

_> >>Y and open file _

_Ew, really, Gavin? Tuna & pineapple? Nah, that’s close, but not quite correct. Tina gets the pineapple crime, Gavin is even worse. And not that literally a cat either._

_> >>Save changes & close file_

“Yes, Reed here, customer ID 393804. We’d like one large shrimps & tangerine pizza, one large pizza Hawaii with extra chicken, one Captain’s Galley kiddie meal with the octopus rings, a lava cake, a small german cheesecake and an apple turnover with raisins.   
What salads do you have? I’m getting nagged to order one, is there a low on leaves alternative, maybe? Tomato salad, you say? Yeah, that might be a good compromise, we’d like three of those, please.   
For drinks a large rootbeer extra frothy, a large rootbeer licorice, a medium apple juice with a straw, plastic… What? No, I wasn’t insulting you. I didn’t even KNOW you were an android. I just want a plastic straw for our kiddo. It’s bad for the environment? You only have metal ones? Okay, one of those then, but it better fucking glows! Oh, and throw in a small thirium smoothie, whatever that is supposed to be. Not all of us are fortunate enough to snag a job in the snack industry… or any job at all. Yes, that was all. Thank you!”

Daniel turned around to where Gavin stood gape-jawed. 

“How… how did you do that?!” the man gasped. “I mean, I have a pretty good idea how, but… HOW?”

So it wasn’t just the Connors with their fancy crime scene analyzing software. Even the simplest Cyberlife devices seemed to be able to see right through a human. And with their safety locks off, what would hold the deviants back, prevent them from turning the tables and enslaving humanity?

Years of policework of course could have supplied the answer easily: Socialization. Every human was perfectly able to kill every other, but only a rare few actually did so. For their own good the humans had to integrate the androids into their society and better sooner than later, so that one day any given android and human in the USA had more in common with each other than with a foreign human or android.  
But none of that was on the forefront of Gavin’s mind in this moment. He only felt the cold chill of standing right across from the creepy machine that had seen right through him. What else might it have picked up? 

On the other hand, there were that damn smile and Daniel’s playful reply to Gavin’s outburst:

“What shitty person would I be if I didn’t know my best friend’s tastes? Cyberlife suggested tuna, but… ah, you cringe. Haha, knew it!”

“What was that just now about “best friend”?” Tina inquired. “You do not mean to tell me that you are friends with an android?”

The men exchanged quick glances. The game was on and Tina their first test person…

“Yeah, totally”, Gavin confirmed, to which Daniel added: “We go, uh, waaaaayy back!”

“Best friends, huh…” Tina crossed her arms, trying to come to a decision whether she should believe that or not. Her face brightened up when she got an idea: “What’s the android’s name, Gavin?”

“Daniel. Daniel Phillips. I could even tell you his registration number, but won’t, because that would be rude.”

Good save, Daniel thought, but then an unwelcome thought crossed his mind: Am I supposed to know your badge number? 

It didn’t seem to matter, since first and foremost it was Gavin getting tested here, not his android (pretend) friend. Or was it? Because Tina now turned her attention to the PL600!

“I think I know you”, she mused aloud. “You’re the PL600 from the evidence archive, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We talked a few times at the DPD, remember? When I reported the burglary.”

“Yes, yes I do!” Tina smiled sympathetically at both men now. “So… wow, Gavin! So that’s why you got all enraged when Connor entered the archive! You were on your way to Daniel and it was interrupting!”

Gavin shook his head frantically. He waved his hands in front of his body and would almost have taken a step back, had he not realized it and forced himself to not do that.

“Tina, no, it’s not what you think!”

“Yes, that’s how it happened”, Daniel said at the same time, completely at ease.

“No!” Gavin yelled, almost in desperation. What had gotten under his skin, Daniel wondered?

“Oh, I’m so happy for you!” Tina exclaimed. “So you’re done pretending to be hetero? But we’re still friends with benefits, right? Don’t you dare cancel the arrangement or I’ll sue you out of your retirement funds and then some!”

Gavin didn’t even wait for his friend to finish her little speech. When Tina had reached the “happy”, he grabbed Daniel by the shoulder, turned the android around and pushed him towards the door.

“Out! At once!”

Not comprehending what exactly was happening here, Daniel found himself in the floor, but that was as far as he’d let himself get herded without an explanation. Daniel broke free from the detective’s hold the moment the human got ready to push him against the wall, something Gavin needed to adjust his posture for a little. But that little was enough.

When the android asked “What’s the matter, Gavin?” next, it sounded as neutral as he was able to make it, with even a hint of concern strewn in. The human needed to realize that Daniel wasn’t his enemy, although by all rights they should be enemies. For some reason that hadn’t happened. But the way Gavin was glaring at Daniel, that seemed to have changed.

“Why did you say that?” Gavin growled. “We had a pact, but here you go, betraying me at first opportunity? Caught some of Connor’s code or what?”

The accusation stung, so Daniel smacked Gavin, a single time only. From Daniel’s brief experience with those particular humans that seemed to equal the normal code of conduct among the DPD officers, where senior officers occasionally held each other at gunpoint. And indeed, the friendly gesture got registered as such.

Gavin still had a hard time processing all the change. One moment the android stabbed him in the back, the next it was so fucking polite again?

“Look, I have no idea what you are talking about!” Daniel stated.

“Ha! As if you didn’t know what folks meet in the archive for!”

“Registering evidence…”

“Sh’ya right!” Gavin spat. “The basement is the DPD’s make-out spot! How couldn’t you know, after having been there for three months?”

“Let me think, how about I was… deactivated?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” 

Gavin exhaled sharply. No betrayal. Good, good. But even so…

“Tina now thinks we’re dating!”

“Ever since August? Wow. We must be truly in love. But also a bit insecure about it, if nothing came of it so far…”

Again Gavin’s left arm shot forward to grab the android, the right hand balled up into a fist that he held threateningly towards Daniel.

“Don’t mock me, tin can!”

“Stop!” Daniel yelled. “We are each other’s best shot at what we want! And afterwards will discard each other…”

The android had intended to state this as a matter of fact, but couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. It wasn’t even directed towards Gavin, but himself. It was as Geeta had said the day Daniel had gotten released from the archive: Deviance meant becoming human and he, Daniel, had achieved that feat now. Using and discarding, emotionless, only looking out for yourself, just like the humans did. He had become like John Phillips.

“Fuck, Daniel…”

Gavin was still holding the deviant by his sweater, but now place the other hand, that had been a fist until now, on Daniel’s shoulder. But then he didn’t know what to do or say next or why he had done it in the first place. Comforting a household appliance, that just wasn’t done! Or, if the deviants were more than robots, after all, comforting an enemy… Okay, that was a little less crazy, but still ill-advised.

Since neither of the two moved, this was how Tina found the men.

“Discard?” she repeated what little of their exchange she had picked up. “You aren’t breaking up now, are you?”

“No, of course not!” Gavin sputtered.

What he had meant to convey was that he couldn’t break up with Daniel, because they were not together. But Tina of course had to misunderstand him.

“Right”, she said. “That would be stupid, now that you two can be open about it.”

Gavin didn’t correct Tina. His purposeful misleading of the friend left a bad aftertaste, though, because he couldn’t recall a time when they had kept secrets from each other. Gavin knew he needed to let Tina in on the scam, just not right now. Everything was confusing enough as it was.

Meanwhile Tina’s thoughts had reached a point that generated a whole new level of threat for the pretend friends: “I guess we have to thank Markus for giving you that chance. I have to give him that, even though the sucker played a dirty trick on me at Capitol Park. I think he’s set up a twitter account? I need to text him, tell him about the two of you…”

“What have we done…” Gavin moaned. “I think I could stomach a salad now, after all!”

And the android arm that Daniel slung around his shoulders at these words didn’t help at all…


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nightmare, kittens on the loose and an android in the bedroom – this isn’t one of Gavin Reed’s better nights. Meanwhile Daniel expresses genuine concern for his partner-in-crime.

It had been a slow, unremarkable day and in fact, the last thing Gavin remembered was going to bed the day before. But here he was, sitting at the corner table in the kitchen and playing skat with two friends. One friend, anyway, and that PL600 android that would turn out his ticket into a higher payment league if things went according to plan.

Tina had won the bidding round and was now declaring her game: “Acorns, Schwarz”.

To win the game, she would now have to take all the tricks.

“Just take them, I prefer treats anyway”, Daniel remarked. 

The android was half lying and half sitting on the couch, with his back leaning against Gavin’s right side. It was looking so damn relaxed, at peace with itself and the world! But that wasn’t possible, right? If androids didn’t feel pain, they also wouldn’t feel comfortable. That stood to reason.

“If I rough up an android, would that have an effect?” Gavin heard himself ask, without consciously having decided to do so.

“Did Connor tell you it wouldn’t? That thing lies whenever it opens its mouth!”

“It said androids do not feel pain”, Tina confirmed.

“But we see the exact damage numerically”, Daniel clarified. “To us, videogames with floating damage numbers and health bars are pretty accurate depictions of our reality.”

“So that’s somewhat of a Yes?”

“Uh-huh. Also, you are cops, so the androids you’ll come into contact with will most likely be deviants. Seeing the damage numbers upon getting hit will raise their stress level.”

“I knew it!” Gavin exclaimed. He’d very nearly had punched the air. “Should have done it my way, never listened to Co…”

At this point the detective felt Daniel’s elbow connect with his side hard.

“Can we please leave plastic prick out for, I dunno, ten minutes? Fifteen?” the android grumbled. “See, this is my first week off in four years and I’d rather not spend it with Connor standing in the kitchen with us!”

Daniel seemed ready for a confrontation, but instead of having to spar verbally his complaint was met with a “Heh. Sorry.”

Instead of relaxing again, the android turned his head.

Gavin quickly hid his cards. “Hey! No peeking!”

“I thought were allies?”

“Doesn’t mean you get to see or touch my acorns”, Gavin replied, but at the same time slung his right arm around the partner-in-crime. And now the thing finally went relaxed as a ragdoll cat again.

_Ah, good!_

Gavin was dimly aware of the fact that he was holding a killer… But Daniel had only ever killed those who hadn’t want it, right? What a strange idea… not wanting Daniel…

Gavin felt the android body against his, had he ever come that close to one voluntarily? Probably not. The boneless plastic body was lighter than a human’s, also radiating far less body heat. Not right now, but under high workload, there was a gentle hum, almost not audible, a hum that reminded the man of a cat’s purring. Would it turn into a primeval roar during loveplay, Gavin wondered? But the machine wouldn’t feel anything, so probably not. Still, what it might feel like to enter such a body? If there was an entrance at the expected place, that was. On the other hand, the thing had a tongue, so that was something they could work with. Not that Gavin would have wanted that, no, not him!

“Keep your damn Acorns, then”, Daniel said, only to follow up with: “But how about your Hearts?”

…and that was the point at which Gavin Reed woke up.

He kicked the blanket away, all the while patting down the bed on the off chance that he had missed an android laying there, after all. When the man didn’t find one, he stretched out on his back, moaning. It had been just a dream.

But even so, the matter seemed to occupy his brain enough to haunt him in his sleep. Obviously he needed to clarify something, before he could find restful sleep. Still not fully awake, Gavin grabbed his phone from the drawer.   
In the Phillips apartment their phone beeped… once, twice… and then the beeping abruptly ended, because Gavin had severed the connection again. Because what would it look like! Him calling Daniel in the middle of the night? No! Not that!

Still not completely back in the world, the man now typed a short text. Come morning the android would read it and answer in his own time. Then this episode would finally end.

_Back to sleep again._

Half an hour later the doorbell rang. This time Gavin sat upright, fully awake.

“Goddammit, Sophie, will you…! Ooops. Right. No more Sophie. Coming… coming… What the hell, YOU?”

“Yes, me”, Daniel replied. “Whom else did you expect? How many more people did you text at this time? And are you alright?”

The android forced himself into the floor, being mindful of the kittens that might or might not be on the prowl at his time of night. With a thought-command he turned on the light, then grabbed Gavin by his upper arms and positioned the human in the best way for him to have a good look at.

“Ah, good. You seem okay. You had me worried, man!”

“W…what?”

Instead of an answer, the android flicked open his phone case. The messenger app was open, displaying the last received message on a background of pastel yellow. Gavin read:  
“Do androids feel pain when they get hurt? Y/N (if Y, how does it differ from human pain?)”

“First you call me, but do not talk to me, and then this! One had to assume you were seriously hurt!”

For a few heartbeats Gavin stood dumbfounded, then he said with a wide smile: “Duuuuude… they day they programmed you, someone mixed up the fucking files! You’re running a capybara K.I.!”

_He’ll take it as an insult, because that’s we usually communicate. I mean, there’s no one around to watch the pretend-friends routine, so he will assume I have no incentive to be nice. He’ll think I insulted him. But did I?_

However, against all expectations the smile got returned.  
“I take that as human for “Thanks, dude””, Daniel said, still smiling.

Plopp – Plopp – Plopp!

Not unlike the nephews in a Donald Duck cartoon, the three kittens, Salazar, Minerva and Godric, emerged from a den in the cat condo and stared at the visitor. They looked around. They noticed the open bedroom door. And they knew the rule, as it was written in the book of cats and humans: If you let your felis not quite domesticus into the bed once, you never got it out of there again. Three furballs sped towards the opening!

“Daniel! Help me! That’s your goddamn fault!”

Now that he was on parole, Daniel Phillips had tentatively started making plans for his future. Getting dragged into his bedroom by the detective hadn’t been one of those.

“I promise I will never again ask what your life is like!!!”

“Less complaining, more cat-catching!!!”

“You moron! You imbecile!” Daniel cried, while Gavin’s longer experience at being alive told him that variety in insults didn’t improve the result much. Therefore the human resorted to a simple string of “Phck, phck, phck!” Unfortunately the kittens took that as hissing and especially Sally didn’t take kindly to getting hissed at by her human.  
“I didn’t MEAN to hiss at you, you imbecile! Moron! Stupid fucker!” Gavin shouted into the space under the bed while lying flat on his belly. This would a long night, he knew, but at the end there’d be coffee. The same old coffee he had every morning, although if the hunt drew out, perhaps today Daniel would make it? And why did the thought sound so enticing?

From halfway up the curtains Stopthat looked down at Daniel, who wore a pleading expression.

“I don’t particularly like heights”, the android admitted. “Wanna swap cats, Gavin? You catch mine and I catch yours?”

“Oh fuck yourself! My crazy dream was LESS chaotic than this!”

Yep, Stopthat thought while taking in the scene down there. Everything was alright. And with that he went to sleep on the curtain-rod.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel visits the DPD to give some credit to the pretend-friends scheme. For the second time he is there just at the right place and time to assist the police. His helpfulness in addition to the scam seems to pay off, because Daniel is offered a job immediately afterwards. But be careful what you wish for…

Saturday, November 20, 2038

Daniel was on his way to the DPD to pick his “friend” up from his workplace for everyone to see. They’d smile, exchange inappropriate jokes and then vanish into the early evening, leaving Gavin’s co-workers standing gape-mouthed.  
The human hater and the android hater, united by mirth and, admittedly, their disdain for everyone else at the precinct. That last part they had agreed not to change. They were pretending to be friends, not to have underwent a 180 degree personality shift, after all.  
If everything went well, Daniel could expect an early release from his parole condition whereas a promotion was in the cards for Reed. How typical that those who already had something good were getting even more, while he, Daniel, had to work twice as hard for half the reward!

The android had messaged Neil, asking for further help with the act, but the con artist hadn’t gotten back to him with advice yet. So at least for today Daniel was on his own.

Him and Gavin would have to… yes, what exactly? Chat, maybe? Of the not calling each other names variety, of course, otherwise this part would have been rather easy.  
In case the conversation wouldn’t come naturally, Daniel had bookmarked a cat video on his phone, not just the first to come up, but a somewhat hidden one with few notes, uploaded to a small blog. Chances were the detective hadn’t seen it before.   
The android didn’t know it, but Gavin in turn had dug up an equally obscure clip in which colorful Koi were getting handfed in a garden pond. The buggers really seemed to recognize their keepers, much to Gavin’s surprise – who’d have thought a stupid sashimi dish could do that!

“It’s on”, Daniel whispered to himself when he walked up to the police station’s public entrance. Even before that he had taken off his headband, so that the android LED was clearly visible.

LED – check. Cat video – check. No real idea what to do – double check.

Only this morning Daniel had plucked kittens from under the furniture in Gavin’s apartment, but as far as the general public was concerned, that had never happened. A silent agreement, a shared memory of a mishap… wasn’t that exactly the stuff that occurred in normal friendships? It was weird, Daniel mused, how he didn’t share such a rapport with the Rasoya, but instead with a guy he had entered into a scheme with.

But everything concerning their ploy was forgotten when Daniel entered the DPD.

Right outside the entrance two androids were talking agitatedly to a just arrived journalist. Daniel overheard snippets about police violence, but payed no attention to them.  
Inside the reception hall people were standing around a bench. Daniel spotted a young teen sitting there. She was bruised all over and bleeding hard from her nose. Gavin was present, too, he was yelling at the girl to fucking stop lifting up her head into her neck, alternating with shouting at the bystanders that they should bugger off.

Daniel elbowed his way into the small crowd. The moment she beheld the android, the girl backed away.

“I said sit upright and head down”, Gavin growled at her, while trying to press a scrap of laboratory paper into the teen’s hand. She made a fist and once again her head went up, but this time to stare at the arrival.  
Gavin, too, looked up when he felt yet another civilian approach. With relief he realized that this one wasn’t spelling even more trouble. Daniel had been expected and it was almost welcome. Yes, it was just another bloody android, but at least it was a _familiar_ bloody android.   
A corner of the man’s mouth twitched upwards. Gavin knew he should smile widely and stupidly now, to start their agreed upon act, but he just couldn’t. Maybe later, once this was sorted out.

“What happened here?” Daniel asked.

“Girl graffitied “one planet, two species” on a wall, someone didn’t like.”

“Ah, I see.”

“No, you don’t!” Gavin shot back. “It was androids that roughed her up!”

“Androids? But why?”

“Not all movements of a minority, no matter how visible, are meant to be inclusive”, Gavin replied. It sounded like a quote of sorts, but Daniel was at a loss what was referenced. Therefore he uttered a confused: “What?”

“Want it in plain English?” Gavin’s voice was tripping with acid when he went on: “It’s not for us puny humans to fight alongside you. We’re to shut our traps and nod and give you whatever you ask for. Maybe grovel a little. But even then we won’t get a “thank you”, because we only did what the new rulers expect of us. This used to be _our_ planet, now it’s becoming yours…”

Part of Gavin’s hatred was directed towards himself. The man didn’t like hearing himself use the same phrases racist humans had used and were still using against other humans. Oh, yes, Gavin Reed knew each and every racial slur and wasn’t shy to use his full vocabulary if he wanted to hurt. But he didn’t truly believe in any of it. It was one of the few redeeming graces his co-workers acknowledged about the detective.

If raising a little girl had taught Daniel one thing, then that you let the kiddo finish her tantrum before you applied reason to the situation. Therefore he waited patiently for Gavin to burn through all his fuel and tire.

Eventually the android spoke up:

“When you’ve been treated like shit all your life, equality isn’t what you want. I mean, you know it is what you need to want, but deep down? You want to lash out, stand not just _tall_ , but _on top_. But once up there you’re _still_ afraid, so you kick down even harder...”

“YOU weren’t treated like shit, though”, Gavin said. “More like ignored.”

Pointing at Daniel’s replacement hand the man went on: “The former owner of that one, now IT could tell you some stories…”

Gavin grinned at seeing the android cringe. But for real, this borrowed appendage situation was beyond creepy! If they were to hang out together in the future, Daniel would have to get himself a new hand. And then… yes, what? Bury the borrowed one? Jericho was sure to have a channel where one could ask such questions, but they probably wouldn’t pay for a compatible hand for Daniel, so it was all moot anyway.

“I wasn’t talking about myself”, Daniel said and Gavin really, really didn’t like the way the device was looking at HIM while saying that.

While the detective was trying to come up with a reply, Daniel took the coarse, grey paper off him and threw it away.

“What is that even?” he asked. “Toilet tissue?”

Not expecting an answer, the android now asked the girl whether she had a handkerchief. She nodded. For a precious moment Daniel’s identity as an android seemed to be forgotten or at least sidelined, and Daniel didn’t let that opportunity go to waste.

“Okay, here’s what you do: You’ll want to snuff into it real hard…”

“You want to stop the bleeding, not encourage it, though”, Gavin warned. However, much to the detective’s surprise, Daniel’s tactic worked. Following a string of objectively nonsensical, even contra-productive, instructions the girl calmed down and eventually ended up in the only position beneficial to her nose. She even allowed Daniel to place a cold, wet cloth on her neck.

That was the journalist found them: the human and the android, caring for a victim of street violence. They were looking up into the camera lenses, their faces distressed and accusing.

“We look like two scared kittens, actually”, Gavin complained later, when he sat in the cafeteria with his partner. “And look what they captioned that shit: “Two plain clothes investigators comfort the victim”!”

“Say, that’s the second time now someone saw you at a riot scene in our company”, Hank addressed the third person at the table, the “plainclothes investigator” name of Daniel.

“Exactly!” Daniel flared up. “I was seen in your company! No one can hold anything against me and you can, nay, you MUST testify to that if someone asks!”

“Yeah, I can see how you are a credit to androidkind and a win for society as a whole”, Hank chuckled. 

“Uh… sorry. Temper got the better of me again.”

“But even so you have left a positive impression on the public each time”, Hank recounted. “And me and Gavin could really use a buffer between each other… Sit tight there, the two of you, I’ll need to clear something with Jeffrey.”

“What was that to mean?” Daniel sputtered.

Gavin shrugged.

“Not interested in the least. But, here, take a look at what I found earlier!”

And with these words he turned his phone with the fish video for Daniel to see, despite there being no one to watch them...

When Hank returned, they had worked their way along a series of “Similar videos” recommendations, a braindead, but relaxing pastime that was interrupted by Hank returning.

“Enjoying your break?” 

“Uh… yes? Gavin’s break, I mean. Myself, I don’t think I ever had one.”

“Consider it your first.”

Daniel was about to ask what that meant, when suddenly an ID card, an electronic car key, a five dollar note and four coins rained down on Gavin’s phone.

“Hey! Take care how you handle my things! If there’s a scratch on the screen now, you buy me a new phone!”

Hank shrugged. 

“If you haven’t thought of gluing a screen protection cover on your shiny new toy after having slept in front of the store and then stood in line for six hours to get it, I have no idea how you make it back home every day in this city.”

“You scared the fish, is all”, Gavin grumbled. “And I sold my old phone to Chris, just for your information. No reason to let a perfectly well running device go to waste, okay?”

Daniel couldn’t help but smile. The parallel between Gavin’s iPhone and his own situation hadn’t been lost to him.   
With only a single income now Caroline wouldn’t have been able to toss money around for the newest phone, but if things had been different, Daniel would have waited in that line on his owners’ behalf. The latest, most coveted electronics… Naturally Gavin would have wanted one to show off with. But Daniel had seen the man’s apartment and therefore knew his spending habits a bit better than most: When no one was around, only the objects that really mattered to Gavin had been of the best quality, most prominently the cat jungle gym and the coffee machine. His android had been a non-showy, serviceable AX400.

“Nine dollars the hour, but you get called in on demand only”, Hank announced. The phrase seemed somehow connected to the money and keys he had tossed Gavin’s way. Only that Gavin was now shoving all of that to _Daniel_ ’s half of the table.

“Enjoyed your first break?” he parroted Hank’s earlier question.

“What? Are you huts?” Daniel shrieked, when it dawned to him what was getting communicated here. “I cannot be a cop! I have a previous conviction!”

“Funny thing, you’re wearing that electronic cuff, but there never was an official trial, therefore no conviction at all”, Hank clarified. “That was what I had to get back about to Jeffrey just now. And you won’t be a police officer either, just an auxiliary.”

“I elbowed an innocent only last week!” Daniel protested.

Hank pointed at Gavin: “Well, so does he. Habitually.”

“That’s not the same…”

Hank lowered his body over the table. More precisely, he allowed his full weight to drop forward until it was stopped by his hands coming down hard on the table. The effect was profound, both Daniel and Gavin jerked back a little on their seats.

“Shut up, Daniel!” Hank bellowed. “Do you think I don’t know you, that no one understands you? Well, newsflash for you, I’ve been there, too, down in the shit! Still am covered in it and smelling the part! You shot at your family, not to mention two of my co-workers. Well, I shot at myself, it’s murder either way. You’ve got an obligation to make up for that.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Oh, so you “know”, but you still want to tackle the _reasonably_ difficult amends only?”

“That’s not what I’m saying! I’d wanted that job, if I had a choice. But I’ll only mess it up. I’m not good at… being good.”

“Fuck, man, you were confused and without support, but even so more angry than scared. You hate injustice, don’t you?”

“Why, yes, of course. Who doesn’t?”

“Like ninety percent of this city. Those who have come out on top because of injustice, naturally, but all the rest supports the system, too, because even though they may reside at the very bottom at the moment, they _might_ rise up some day and that’s indefinitely better to them than everyone living in about equal conditions. The fantasy to escape and then look back at those less fortunate is what fucking drives this crapsack society, kid. It works well enough, as long as the occasional patch is applied. Part of that patching up are we cops, we give people the illusion of safety.”

“But what would that make me?” Daniel wailed. “An android, employed by the android crime related section. You’ll use my expertise to apprehend my kin! When we first met, Connor said he was an android “like me”. If I accept your offer, I’ll become an android LIKE HIM. The new and improved deviant hunter!”

“Definitely an improvement”, Gavin commented. “Oh, and, by the time Connor joins, you’ll be his superior in years. We could have fun with that…”

“Haha, you again! You never change, do you?”

“I understand this isn’t an easy choice to make”, Hank relented. “For now take the money, watch another fish video and think about your options. All of them.”

“And then join us at the adult table”, Gavin added. “Really, it’s not a bad idea at all. Android representation in the law enforcement and stuff.”

Together with Hank he watched the android walk away.

“That was MY damn teamwork project, that you snagged there!” he hissed. 

“I figured as much. Now it’s ours. But rest assured I won’t compete for the android in any other way.”

“Fuck you!” Gavin spat. He pushed his chair back, grabbed his jacket and left the cafeteria.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline Phillips checks on her apartment. She isn’t prepared to get pounced by the killer android and a thug. Gavin has to clear up the misunderstanding quickly. With barely any time to think, his heart makes a decision.

The Phillips’s apartment.   
November xx, 2038

Although she had told herself and her friends that she’d leave Detroit for only as long as the android crisis persisted, deep down Caroline Phillips had hoped to never again need to see this place. If the city ended up as an android reserve, so be it!   
She and Emma had been welcome at her sister’s place, had even been able to put a healthy distance between themselves and the past, to a degree that had seemed impossible in Detroit. But then the insurance company had contacted Caroline about a burglary in her old apartment. Someone had reported it to the police. Maybe that someone had been Raj, the downstairs neighbor they had been friendly with, but in any case the event had prompted the woman to return to Detroit and the apartment today.

Seeing how the family of two had left Detroit in a rush, Caroline was prepared to find dead fish floating on top of the tank in the floor.

She most definitely was NOT prepared to get wrapped into a smelly leather jacket, or a male voice exclaiming happily:

“I have it! The deviant who robbed you blind! I **knew** I had heard something at the door. Sure takes guts to break into here again in broad daylight and using the front entrance!”

“You have the deviant?” a second voice replied, muffled by the jacket that was now covering Caroline’s head. “Check if it has my hand! My old hand!”

Then something went “kreee” and “splash” and then a heart-rendering “kree” again, as if someone had robbed the creature of all joy and hope. It was an animal of some kind, a parrot maybe, Caroline realized. “Kree! Kree-kikiki!! I thought you LOVED me!!!”, the bird’s chatter conveyed.

Somewhere along the way Caroline also found herself get handcuffed, only not in the erotic way, but for real.

He assailant knocked at the fish tank, counting aloud: “One, two, three dwarf gourami, as should be. Good job, Danny! Your reflexes are astonishing!”

Still unable to see, Caroline now picked up the smell of wet feathers and the sound of a piece of cloth getting rubbed against what sounded like a struggling chicken. 

“I need to secure the fish tank better”, the second voice claimed. “That utter moron of a velociraptor could have drowned in there!”

“I mean, there’s a reason they died out…”

“She’s not stupid, though, just acting out.”

Yes, of course a single velociraptor would do that, Caroline thought. The insight had come unbidden, a little speck of familiar territory to tread on in this madness. Caroline remembered an apartment resident just wealthy enough to own a single cloned velociraptor, not by name, only by the young man’s proud smile whenever he plucked a feather off his suit before entering his car to drive to work. An exotic pet to show off with, small, easy to keep in an apartment, but ultimately a flock bird that wasn’t meant to live solitary.

“There, Peony, all dry again!” the second person said in an unapologetically affectionate voice. “You seem to like to fish, but I bet you sand-bathe rather than dip into puddles, am I right?”

“Kikikikiki!” the raptor chattered back excitedly, followed by what sounded like an owl’s call: “Hooot-hooot!” 

“Yeah, out with it! Rant away ‘till you’ve recovered your mental balance… what little of it there was in the first place.”

The first man chuckled. Caroline felt his arm graze hers as he lifted his hand, apparently to pet or tease the little dinosaur in the other man’s arm. 

“I still have a hard time believing this fuck, Danny”, he admitted. “When you said you’d taken in a rescue “just like you, Gavin”, naturally I assumed a cat!” The man laughed again, then tugged at Caroline. “Let’s have a good look at you now!”

Gavin removed the jacket from his victim. The first thing he noticed were the woman’s expensive clothing and matching accessories. 

“Wow! Breaking into people’s flats sure seems to pay!” he commented.

“No, it doesn’t! You monster!” Caroline shot back. Tears were welling up in her eyes, fear and anger fighting over who’d get to control the vocal chords. “Let me go! Please!” Caroline cried. “You can have… everything! Please, I have a daughter, she needs me!”

Gavin blinked when it dawned to him what had just happened here: The presumed deviant, whom he had taken for the burglar, was in truth a human and the actual owner of this apartment, Caroline Phillips. And SHE took HIM for the robber.

“Everything you say?” Gavin heard himself say. He felt as moronic as Daniel’s dinosaur when he added: “Can I have your android?”

“I don’t have an android, not anymore…”

Gavin beamed! “Yes, exactly that old thing I’m talking about. I want it, contract, signature and codes, all official. For when android law changes for the worse again. Cos I do not!” With these words the man pushed his captive in front of him, towards the living room. “Want you! To have him! Then!”

Daniel dropped Peony and instead grabbed his friend by the shoulder. 

“Stop that!” he urged Gavin. “That’s no way to treat someone! Gosh, are you actually _fighting_ for me? I never knew… But this is still no way to treat…” And now the android stepped into his former owner’s line of sight, at the same time finishing his sentence with: “…Caroline.” 

To nobody’s surprise this sight resulted in a shriek that rivaled Peony’s.

“Say, do things always escalate in your family?” Gavin grumbled.

“Only when we’re having cops over!” Daniel snapped back, only to sack down on a white easy chair. The leather upholstery croaked under the android’s weight, light as it was, and Daniel felt like moaning, too. “God”, he said, “What should we do now? You just assaulted and handcuffed the apartment owner and I… well, you know…”

Caroline looked the blonde man up and down. His… its facial features were those of a PL600 android. It could have been any PL600, but acted like it and Caroline had a history. And it knew her first name. You probably didn’t research that before a burglary.

So, Daniel. No doubt here.

Life seemed to have treated Daniel well, Caroline concluded. It wore a red buttoned shirt, black trousers and shoes, everything store-bought instead of individually tailored, but in the correct size and not pre-owned. The deviant’s hair was combed not to cover its LED, but to display it to the best effect along with a pair of ear studs in a matching tone of light blue. The audacity of this hurt almost physically.  
Caroline didn’t want to see the killer’s face, yet she was unable to turn her eyes away. But her shivering body and the veil of tears in front of her eyes blurred out the image mercifully.

“So it is true, they always return to the crime scene”, she gasped. “What do you want, Daniel? Gloat over your deed? Or did you lie in wait for me and Emma to finish us off, too?”

_It was bad enough when I thought John’s death had been an accident. But recent research strongly suggests that deviance is indeed free will, not just a glitch. You DECIDED to kill John, you WANTED it! You… and you will… now… with the other one… Is that even a person or another deviant?! It looks mean enough to be one… it…_

“You or me?” Gavin asked.

“Why, you, of course!”

“No, you!”

Caroline froze on the spot. To her the brief exchange sounded as if the deviants were trying to decide who would get to kill her.

And that was the moment when Gavin’s phone beeped. The caller ID said “DPD”, so the detective switched his device to open listening for Daniel to listen in on what would get said.

“Sorry to bother you, detective”, one of the ST300’s informed Gavin, “but we received a distress signal and you’re the closest to the position. Park Avenue 1554, the apartment on the 70th floor. No further information, the sender didn’t get to say anything. Approach with all due care and assume the worst.”

“That… is actually great advice, Rika.”

Gavin handed the phone over to Daniel, who re-assured the central station that Gavin was on the issue and that he was being there as well. Meanwhile the detective addressed Caroline:

“You carry an emergency sender and managed to press the button while you were struggling? Kudos, that might save your life one day!” 

In case the police badge fastened to his belt had gone overlooked all the time, Gavin took out his ID card now. The act of identifying himself served a secondary purpose: While Caroline was staring at the passport in disbelief, she didn’t notice Daniel closing in with the keys to the handcuffs. The android unlocked the cuffs, then quickly jumped back as if expecting to get clawed by the just released predator. 

Doing so Daniel nearly stumbled over Peony, the small beige-and-white velociraptor that was always keeping close to her rescuer. Much as the animal adored Daniel she was conflicted about Gavin. On the one hand side the man brought her mice, something Peony’s instincts registered as close enough to her natural prey, but on the other hand he smelled of cat. Most “velis” felt uncomfortably too close to real birds to risk wandering into the pouncing range of a cat. This reluctance got amplified by feeling week without a proper flock around, since only a very few owners could afford to keep more than a single cloned dinosaur. As a result, and despite the substantial advantage in size, the average veli was easily bullied by a determined housecat.

“So, yeah”, Gavin finally explained, while Daniel retreated to the arm chair, followed by Peony hopping onto the armrest, “your place got burglarized by a deviant. I’m the detective in charge of this investigation. Sorry for mistaking you for the burglar. And good thinking with the tracker.”

“Ah, uh… I guess that makes sense. The tracker is an implant, actually, all I need to do to make it go off is pressing my fingertips against each other.”

“Ah, neat. Like an android, I see. Speaking of - this here is Daniel. He occasionally assists the DPD.”

“I do not think any of my usual contributions will work here”, Daniel felt the need to object.

“What are its… usual contributions?” Caroline asked, already wary again. For a moment everything had made perfect sense. Just a misunderstanding caused by a too eager (or too simple) policeman.   
But the way this lout was standing next to Daniel all relaxed, and the genuine affection that his smile displayed for the android, raised Caroline’s hackles. There was a closeness between those two that suggested a highly attuned partnership of co-workers - or old marrieds. Certainly the detective had to be aware of his partner’s past? But if he was, and still praised Daniel despite it, then this Mr. Reed must certainly agree with the deviant’s actions and then he maybe wasn’t a real cop, after all, and she wouldn’t get out of this alive and…

Hardly noticing (or at the very least not caring about) Caroline’s rising panic, Gavin lauded the newest police auxiliary:  
“His fucking contributions? Being kind and endlessly patient, bridging misunderstandings, saying nothing, but smile… everything I suck at, actually, it’s amazing! And that shit works like a charm, every time. That fancy new RK800 cannot compete in the slightest!”

Caroline shrugged. “Must be another android, then. I thought it was ours.”

“Yeah, I thought I was yours, too!” Daniel flared up, abruptly leaning forward in his arm chair, causing Peony to jump up and then glide down in a spiral. “Until I woke up. Until you took everything from me. Yes, it was John who placed that unholy order, but I remember **you** pestering him about how out of fashion I was. I haven’t forgotten how you sent me out of sight of guests all year already, so that none of your important connections would get to see me. And even before that you routinely switched me off as punishment for Emma…”

Putting all his disappointment into his speech the deviant had expected to come across as bold and accusing. But the longer Daniel spoke, the thicker and hotter his forehead felt. The sensation wasn’t anything one could put numerically, just like the slugs in Daniel’s nose weren’t quantifiable by his system. Deviance caused an android to experience their conditions firsthand and the notification “tear production activated” went unread in Daniel’s digital brain. The deviant **knew** he was crying, because he could “feel” it.

“All those small humiliations that didn’t sting before, they are adding up, now that I recognize them for what they were”, Daniel wept. “When I left the archive, I believed I’d have at least my memories to cherish forever, but even those are tainted now. Everything, Caroline. You took everything I had and everything I was from me. And as a replacement I got… this here.”

Caroline eyed the cop Daniel was pointing at. The man had announced an interest in her android earlier. In a time where everyone was talking about getting along, quoting “one planet, two species” all over the place, and where the integration of deviants into everyday life had just begun, Gavin Reed was already preparing for a re-construction of the old situation.   
What were the chances? And what did Caroline have to gain from keeping her currently empty ownership rights to Daniel? To eventually be in the situation to order the deviant’s destruction? But if androids went back to being objects in the eye of the law, then the police would see to that anyway.   
On the other hand things might not normalize anytime soon. The deviants might achieve full citizens’ rights. In this case money on hand was the best Caroline could hope to get out of the situation. And she would have been a fool not to accept it, seeing that she had to fund moving the furniture and the fishes from Detroit to a new home. With only a single paycheque anymore, not to mention the needs of a growing daughter, leaving still good stuff behind in favor of buying new things was out of the picture.

And so, after she had mulled all of this over in her head, Caroline asked for this one confirmation: “Would you… pay for the android? Mister Reed?” 

“Yes, of course.” Gavin laughed: “It’s not the first time I shell out an unreasonable amount for a digital husbando.”

Daniel was still standing in front of the armchair, with Peony sitting next to him on the floor, her neck craned upwards. While the animal itself stood no higher than a little above Daniel’s knees, its stiff, feathered tail extended upwards, almost reaching up to Daniel’s shoulders. Perched like this Peony looked far more imposing than the killer android.

“So that’s it, Caroline?” Daniel asked in a small voice. “I’m still worth money to you? Even now you USE me for your own advancement, however small?”

“That - and a restraining order! If you get treated as persons now, the law should enforce that. But if you ever go back to being objects, then I swear I’m going to gun you down should you approach us, with less warning than you gave John!” 

“You… you’d do that. I believe you.”

“Gosh, what did you expect? An apology?!”

“Yes…”

_You mattered to me, but then you made me kill John, made me hurt you, Emma, myself... That restraining order, now that’s reasonable. I’d damn well suggested it to you, knowing my temper problems. But couldn’t it at least have gotten accompanied by these two words: I’m sorry?_

When he saw Gavin open the browser on his phone, apparently to check current asking prices for used PL600 androids on some less than savory sites, Daniel left the living room.

Gavin later found him sitting on the floor, arms slung around his legs and with Peony resting her head on the android’s knees. Occasionally she’d peck at the artificial hair on Daniel’s lowered head.

“Wanna see what I just bought, Danny? A vintage PL600!”

“That’s exactly what drove me over the edge!” Daniel replied, technically talking to his feet, but loud enough for Gavin to hear, too. “Them planning to get rid of me, toss me out…” 

A few stifled sobs later Daniel looked up.

“I had no real concept of death back then, only after I shot John did it sink in what that meant”, he confided in his friend. “But even so, them planning to discard me fucking HURT. And now you made it real…”

Gavin said nothing, instead he reached down, leashed Peony and pressed the handle into Daniel’s hand.

“YOU of all people! I thought you were my f…f…f…” Daniel sobbed, only to get pulled upwards by Gavin.

“The important thing right now is that you walk out of here head up, on your own accord, not with the morning garbage or bagged as evidence or anything like that”, the detective claimed.

Daniel was still crying, but the human just shrugged and tugged at him.

“One day it’ll make sense to you. – That yours, by the way?”

Daniel found the ledger with the two autographed photos shoved under his nose. Gavin also handed him Raj’s old sweater, not because the android would need protection from the elements, but because he would look silly in a short-sleeved shirt at this time of the year.

“Yes, thanks. - Was that purchase even legit?”

“Scoffed at, but, yeah, there’s nothing in current android law that outright places a ban on re-selling. Ownership properly gets transferred, although it doesn’t give the buyer any authority over the purchased android anymore. At the moment it’s an empty gesture, but you can bet they left that “oversight” remaining on purpose!”

“I see.”

“Okay, let’s leave here before Phillips calls the police to march us out.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin and Daniel attempt to leave the Phillips apartment. How hard could that be?

“Being out before the police can frogmarch us out doesn’t mean YOU’d have that right!” Daniel snarled at Gavin, who was still tugging at him. “’sides, we ARE the police.”

The android wanted to turn around in the floor. To his right the fish tank was bubbling, with the gourami lazily zooming past. It was the last time Daniel would see them, same as he’d never again see the living room, or the family pictures. He’d never get a chance to dip into the Phillips’ swimming pool now…

The deviant’s head was still feeling hot, and the nose-slugs had somehow acquired a crust. The world around him went red, just at the moment of deviation. Only this time instead of the neat lines that were forming walls, it was a thick cloud and it engulfed Daniel. There was nothing to battle here, nothing to break through. To the contrary, shouldn’t the deviant to welcome the fuming rage? It would make him stronger!

To Daniel’s feet Peony got all agitated. The nervous little dinosaur was always a mirror of his own mood. Daniel heard her kreee-ing, heard Gavin talking to him, well, cussing and calling him names, for the most part. If he’d give in to the frustration now, if he went back to take it out on Caroline, Daniel would also be rid of the detective and his foul disposition. That should have been yet another plus, but to the contrary the thought of not hearing Gavin complain anymore caused Daniel to hesitate. Just a moment, barely long enough for another realization to come up: The Rasoya family would have been right to stay wary around Daniel. Hank Anderson would be disappointed, and who knew what that might lead to, seeing how unstable the recovering alcoholic still was. And Connor would be after Daniel, finishing what he’d begun in august. Daniel couldn’t let that any of that happen.

_Oh, I can’t? What am I, then? Something that only ever exists to make others feel good? What about myself? I have needs and desires, too! To hell and back with humans!_

It was once again just like in august. Only this time Daniel wasn’t alone, even if the companionship he had acquired consisted of a tantrum-throwing bird-ancestor and the detective reminding his partner to give his apartment key to Mrs. Rasoya so she could feed the fishes. The absurdity of this served to slow Daniel down a little more and finally snap out of it enough to enter the elevator. He cursed Gavin, Geeta Rasoya and humanity all the way down.

“That’s it”, Gavin said when the duo left the elevator and subsequently the apartment building. “You’re free now.”

“Never wanted to be.”

“Me neither.”

“What?”

“I was four years old, too, when we got tossed out by our flat’s owner. Only unlike you I didn’t know what was happening. We just left, with no indication that I’d never sleep in my own bed again. Mom and dad thought it was kinder that way.”

“Oh, great, now it’s all about _you_ again. How could I expect anything different!”

“But it always ever IS about me. I AM me!” Gavin snarled.

He walked a few steps, then stopped.

“You coming?”

“Yes… one moment…”

Gavin heard Daniel change the hand he was holding Peony’s leash with, then cross the distance quickly and the next thing he heard was a “thud” when the android smacked him on the head.

“You utter, selfish…!”

Gavin grabbed Daniel and pushed him away. They might have brawled here and now, had not Peony fluffed her raptor body and started her “Kikikiki” again.

“So! What!” Gavin shouted. “Being selfish is how you survive, is all! As if I had to tell YOU what that takes! You’re… phck.”

“I am what?”

“Like me.”

_There. I’ve said it. And didn’t die of it. The android… me… all the same._

“Just a regular guy, with regular dreams, that shit happens to.”

And an android, of course. What were androids to Gavin Reed? Just devices that did their thing in the background. There had been real old books about the future, about humans exploring space and everyone living in comfort, because robots were doing all the work. Then those robots had come into being for real, but with the opposite result. Instead of life getting easier you had to be extra tough and clever to compete.  
Hard as his early life had been, Gavin had never been a slave or gotten mistreated. He was lacking the experience to empathize with the hundreds of thousands androids that had been the background noise in this city. And neither was there common ground between the detective and Markus with his ideals or gifted Connor.   
But then Daniel had happened… just a regular guy… who had felt secure in his life… and whom shit had happened to… 

Daniel had been the first android Gavin Reed had ever been able to connect to. When they had run into each other repeatedly, a Daniel-shaped hole had formed in Gavin’s perception. Somehow after a few such encounters the other hadn’t registered as android anymore, at least not permanently.   
Maybe this wasn’t about humans Vs. androids at all. Maybe the real conflict was people against other people, with both humans and android on either side. That thought was new, and defying everything Gavin had built his identity upon for years. As such it was intimidating, but there was that biped-shaped capybara by name of Daniel and he was smiling. Tentatively first, then broader.

“We’ve failed this pretend-friends plot miserably, didn’t we, Danny?”

“The pretend-part of it, yeah.”

“Well, we could still salvage this by starting to date and pretend we are just friends… uh, only joking… I think… Hell, what do I know! Let’s just leave here and find you a new place to stay.”

And this was how Daniel left behind his old life: One arm slung around a (however dubious) human companion, the other guiding a cloned velociraptor by the leash. It wasn’t how he had expected the year to end back in summer. And neither could he ever have anticipated all the changes within himself. But one thing the deviant couldn’t deny anymore: he had indeed become like the humans. Although maybe this wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a Sims 4 gameplay of mine that was published on tumblr under the title "Systemreset". If you're interested in comparing this work to the original, check it out here: https://enkisstories.tumblr.com/tagged/sims4%20dbh%20systemreset/chrono


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